Our latest Soft Shell color is here: Orange. Before you rule it out as something you can't pull off, let's take a look...
An orange anyone can pull off with class.
Being a minimalist doesn't have to mean being boring. Yes, black matches with anything and will never go out of style, but there's another dimension of minimalism that Orange helps address... practicality.
Easy to find
A wallet is an item that is frequently searched for- whether it's on a table or in a bag, our eyes are accustomed to looking around for one each day to make sure we bring it with us.
That's why folks have been asking for something "brighter" to help them find it. Or for couples, something different than their partner.
Sophisticated
Besides being our brand color, Orange was a natural choice to achieve differentiation from its environment. I wanted to make Orange Soft Shell for years but like many things, it takes a lot to do it right. First there's picking the shade you want... then there's the process of accurately producing it.
For selecting the color, I wanted something a little more subtle than the brighter orange we've used for our Tyvek wallets. So I went for something a bit deeper... where it doesn't scream for attention, but still comes alive when the light hits it right.
Since we custom produce the fabric, we can define any color we want but with complete freedom means we can completely mess it up too. As it turns out, orange is one of the hardest colors to execute. It's easy for it to get "pumpkin" if you're not careful and just as easy to get muddy if you go the other way.
The process for replicating a color for a fabric is to do a lab dip. And the most straightforward way to do that is to send a reference fabric for the lab to match. But haven’t been able to find anything like what I imagined.
Many of you may be familiar with Pantone- the folks behind PMS (Pantone matching system). But did you know there's a completely different system for matching fabric? And a different one still for plastic? well, I finally went ahead and bought the reference fabric book and specified two of its colors to try... as well as a third color between those two, which wasn't even in the book.
Even after the lab dip, there's still some margin of error in production because the lab dip is not done on the same exact material. So you don't know what it'll truly look like. In our case, Soft Shell has a nice thick body like a ski jacket, but a tighter weave for durability, and a matte finish.
When the rolls arrived, I couldn't have been more happy with how the color came out. It's deep and rich catches light in a really interesting way.
Whether you're someone who knows for sure they can pull off an orange or is on the fence, this is an orange that'll work for you if ever there were one. It goes great with jeans, black pants, kakis, and gray. Try one out and let me know if I've achieved my goal of creating a timeless orange.
