One of the most important tenets of that job (and that of my company today) is to support successful production of color. We do this by providing consistent color swatches, dye recipes and digital data to enable dyers to predict recipes using their own dyes.
Mary Vigeant Founder & CEO of Sophicolor
Introduction — Connecting Color
Hello, my name is Mary Vigeant, founder, and CEO of Sophicolor.
Welcome to Sophicolor U: Connecting Color.
Sophicolor U - Connecting Color is a series of educational blogs exploring the world of Sophicolor and digital color in general. Some of the topics we will cover include the inspiration behind Sophicolor Collections, the physics of color, the importance of illuminants and light sources, color trend intelligence, and how digital color connects designers with their production team.
First, I’d like to give a little background about myself. I began my color journey in the early 80s as a laboratory textile dyer at a sourcing company owned by a multinational apparel retailer. Fortunately, I had a perfect eye for color differences and the job fit me like a glove. One of the most important tenets of that job (and that of my company today) is to support successful production of color. We do this by providing consistent color swatches, dye recipes, and digital data to enable dyers to predict recipes using their own dyes.
Today I own a company servicing apparel manufacturers with textile color standards, distributing colors globally and color trend forecasts. During the past several decades the ebb and flow of business trends have shown to be cyclical. For example, when the retail environment gets tough whether by inflation, recession or Covid, retail apparel companies eventually downsize their human resources. Typically, those cuts come first in the quality area of the management teams, and color is a part of quality.
During the past year 2022, I have been talking to many designers, colorists, and managers regarding what has specifically changed since the Covid shut down in the spring of 2020. The first and most significant finding is most of the people working in color today have only been doing it for less than two years. This, though not unusual during such a significant event in our business history, has created a vacuum of experienced employees proficient in color.
My goal is to provide information in a web format that can be easily viewed, downloaded and further support those who need advice about producing color.