The Tradition of The Color Fabric Swatch Lab

"What are you making?" is the question the woman at the fabric cutting counter asks me as she rolls out the beautiful fabric I've selected. She's probably heard some pretty wild answers to that question but she says she has never heard mine. ​​​​​​​​

Joan Kosmachuk, Color Lab & Studio Palm Springs, California

You see, a fabric color lab and a swatch-by-swatch color palette was a common thing at one time here in California but with Suzanne's passing it started to slowly get replaced by other methods. I understand the desire for simplification ( color swatch labs are time consuming both to curate and maintain) and fabric is expensive whereas digitally printed color cards or paint chips make for lower overhead, easier storage and training. But having studied a number of different color tools, the fabric color lab is still the Cadillac of them all.

There's a big difference in a color created with fabric dye and a color created with computer ink. I love working with individual fabric swatches because it allows me to dial into your very best colors one shade at a time. But also, the fabrics themselves inform me of so much about you. Do you come alive with smooth or textured, finer woven fabrics or coarser ones, matte or sheen…?

In an industry that keeps trying to simplify the process I find accuracy comes with its original complexity.

Suzanne Caygill was the originator of the fabric swatch color lab. She employed many volunteers to curate fabrics, back and cut the swatches to her specifications, and bring the various trays of swatches to her as she needed them during her consultations. Janeen Olsen worked with Suzanne and said keeping her swatch trays filled was a real challenge with the number of consults she was doing per day, especially when on the road.

Suzanne Caygill creating a color palette for Janeen Olsen's Daughter using her travel color lab.

Lois Marlow Scott worked as an assistant to Suzanne in her salon in San Francisco for many years. Her daughter, Kristin, recalls visiting Suzanne’s color salon as a small child. “Mother would dress me in my fanciest lace trimmed dress with patent leather shoes and even gloves sometimes.  It was always such an exciting trip to the City.  Suzanne’s salon, to a young girl, was like a palace, a castle…I remember everything being beyond lovely and grand.  Her lab sat at the end and it was HUGE.  It overlooked the city - it was amazing - swatches everywhere.  There was so much creativity happening there.”

In time Lois would set up her own color consulting business, first with Pat Brown and then later in her home as she curated her own amazing color lab with the help of many friends & family. Kristin remembers countless hours of taping and cutting fabric.  “We had fabric everywhere…mom would find the richest of fabrics and couldn’t help but want to get them into her lab.  Textures, prints, metals were all such important details in the process.  When mom was working in her lab, it was magic!”

Kristin is now the preservationist of her mother’s vast fabric swatch lab.

The Color Lab of the late, Lois Marlow Scott,  San Jose, CA

Cathy Williams mentored with and assisted Lois for a decade. She swooned over the beautiful colors and fabrics in Lois’ lab and over the years lovingly curated and maintained her own color lab from fabrics she found, backed and cut as well as with swatches she received in exchange for her internships with Lois and other color consultants. Walking into Cathy’s gorgeous light-filled, colorful color lab was enough to sell me on the concept and I went home that very day and started backing and cutting my own color swatches. I am still humbled by the gift I was given of many swatches & display boards from Cathy’s lab upon her passing, as well as swatches I received from other consultants who were retiring, all of which accelerated the expansion of my own.

My mentor, Cathy Williams in her light-filled color lab. 

Jessica Riolo was also a student of Suzanne’s color academy in Atlanta in 1994. I have had the privilege of visiting and learning from Jessica in her beautiful fabric-filled studio. Jessica’s approach to curating, storing and using her color lab is quite unique. Jessica knew that she wanted to stock her own fabric because she was very interested in the fabric and it was helping her to supply her made-to-order business as well.

Jessica says, “It really gives me the opportunity to teach my clients their most becoming textures and to show them how to co-ordinate fabrics in their wardrobe, and it provides me with options to show my clients fabrics for special orders as well. Sometimes someone will come, and I just don’t have the exact shade of the pigment they need but because I curate my own fabrics it helps me to make adjustments to my inventory as I search out new fabrics in those specific shades.”

The fabric filled studio of Jessica Riolo, Authentic Images, Hastings-on-the Hudson, NY. 

Suzanne’s methodology spread around the world and in 1989, Wenche Veiersted, Authentic Image, brought the color lab to Germany and says she still has no doubt that Suzanne Caygill’s system is the best system on the market. Wenche began training other color consultants in 1991 and now lives and works in her home town of Oslo, Norway. She shares that “the challenge of our consultants is of course keeping up the fabric supplies. Some of the women I have trained in Germany are selling fabrics, so together we are doing very well, buying and selling swatches to each other — this helps because we are doing palettes every week and can quickly run out of certain colors.”

Wenche Veirested, Authentic Image, has one of the largest color labs in Europe.

One consultant who trained with Wenche is Nina Pelkonen, Color and Style. Nina purchased some swatches from a consultant in the U.S. and took them home to Germany in 1994 Her beautiful cabinet of color currently holds approx. 2700 color swatches and she believes this is the minimum number to be able to offer individual color palettes.

Nina initially stored her fabrics on the walls of her studio but for the protection of the fabric, eventually switched to this beautiful architect's chest restored by her husband.  

And the practice of working with your own color swatch lab has reached as far as France where Caitriana MacDonald, Curating Color, believes the fabric color lab is the only option for a good color analysis. She also trained with Wenche, purchasing a pre-loved collection of swatches from another consultant and continues to add additions of her own.

Some of the many swatches in Caitriana MacDonald's color lab.

Catriana explains her passion for her color lab in this way, “Maya Angelou talked of, “the light that shines from within” —  this is the only colour system, which is subtle and nuanced enough to truly capture our natural, inherent radiance. 

I want to give my clients, all the tools to enable them to translate their own “light” into a unique, subtle and nuanced wardrobe, that allows them to completely connect with both themselves and their unique natural beauty, so they can exquisitely express exactly who they are.”

And in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Caitlin Veenstra, Colours by Cait, is now assisting me in creating fabric color swatches for sale for those wanting to curate or expand their existing color labs. Swatches can be shipped anywhere in the world. Caitlin is also curating her own color swatch lab which may just be the first of its kind in Canada.

Caitlin's fabric swatches have a clear archival backing and are cut to precision at 1.5 x 2.5 "

I’ve highlighted just a few of the many consultants both past and present who have curated and worked from their own color lab. Suzanne’s tradition of using a fabric color lab for Seasonal Color Analysis has truly travelled all around the world, and I, for one, am so, so grateful that she started this wonderful tradition, aren’t you? If this group feels like your tribe, let’s talk about training opportunities and how you can begin to curate a Suzanne Caygill-inspired color lab for your color biz.