Whitney Clay: Welcome to the West Valley College TEACH Center podcast.
Michelle Francis: TEACH stands for training educators advocating change.
Whitney Clay: I'm Whitney Clay, Instructional Designer.
Michelle Francis: And I'm Michelle Francis, Professional Development Coordinator and Instructor in Child Studies.
Whitney Clay: At the TEACH Center, we support faculty as they cultivate excellence in teaching and learning and welcome their students with engaging pedagogies.
Michelle Francis: In this podcast, we discuss hot topics in teaching and learning. We interview educators about what they are doing in their fields, and we talk to learners about what inspires them.
Whitney Clay: Today in the studio, I'd like to welcome Professor Nicole Markle's from the West Valley College Fashion Program.
Nicole Markelz: Oh, it's my pleasure. So happy to be here, Whitney.
Whitney Clay: So I want to ask you about color and how how you use color in fashion design.
Nicole Markelz: Well, it's really funny if you think about –– I want to ask you first, Whitney. What colors are you wearing? What colors do you have on your body right now?
Whitney Clay: Green and blue.
Nicole Markelz: Is it green or is there like a better way to describe that color?
Whitney Clay: Spring green and denim blue.
Nicole Markelz: OK. OK. I see what you're wearing. It does look like it's spring green and denim blue. Did you choose your garments based on the color, or did you choose them for some other reason?
Whitney Clay: I actually did choose them based on the color.
Nicole Markelz: Yeah. So when you walked in the store, you're like, I like that color. That's the color. Well, so as it turns out, color is is what sells garments. You know, most people when they walk into a store will be looking at the color and not so much even the shape or the style or the length of the pants or whatever. What catches people's eye and what brings people into a store is the color of the garment itself. And so color plays a huge role in kind of the emotional part of purchasing clothing. And one of the things I really like to ask my students a lot is when you go to a store, when you approach a store, we don't do this very much in this pandemic era. But when you see the window display, and you're looking at the clothing that's there, what color catches your eye? Then think if you were to walk into that store? Is that the color you would purchase? And they're actually often is a disconnect there.
Whitney Clay: So it would be for me.
Nicole Markelz: Do tell me, tell me what color would catch your eye?
Whitney Clay: Probably bright colors and I might go in and I might choose the happy colors. Or I might decide that's a little too much and then tone it down.
Nicole Markelz: And I think that happens a lot like I really love. I'll always be drawn to like yellow and pink, but those colors don't look good on me. And so I'm probably going to be like, Well, it'll be more practical. I bought like Tom or Brown or something like that. I guess my point then, is that color really drives a lot of our our choices. You know, for emotional reasons or for practical reasons. And so it's a big part of the business. And so as designers are deciding what kind of clothing they're going to create for this season that's coming up or even like two years from now, they'll actually consult what are called trend color forecasters, and those people are essentially contracted or hired to "predict" – I'll put in quotation marks – what colors are going to be popular two years from now.
Whitney Clay: That's crazy. They have like a color crystal ball?
Nicole Markelz: Well, that's that's what we always ask – how do you know this? And they'll be hazy and you have to pay a lot of money and you really can't like, I went to a fabrics conference in L.A. and the color forecaster. People are out there and I couldn't take my phone out. I couldn't take pictures of anything. I couldn't. Oh, we ask a lot of questions because it's very like kind of proprietary about how they make these decisions. And they'll say, you know, we're looking at what's going on in the world and we're looking at the feeling the vibe and kind of where things were and where they're going and and what we think people are into. And we kind of create this story, this color story, and I always think it's really funny. Two years out, how can you possibly predict what is going to happen in the world? And so I kind of like to think of it. Maybe it's a prediction, but infliction, they're telling us what we're going to like.
Whitney Clay: That's what I was going to say – it kind of sounds like they are deciding what the next color will be.
Nicole Markelz: Yeah. And often it's a number of colors that usually there's like sets of colors. There might be like the younger generation color and the older generation colors, maybe the houseware colors, and they often have stories that go along with them. And there's even like if you've heard of the Pantone color company... Actually, have you heard of Pantone?
Whitney Clay: No, I think I'm thinking of the bread.
Nicole Markelz: Well, Pantone is like a color matching company. One of the most famous and it's used in the art industry, in computer graphics, in fashion, in housewares, all these different areas because it essentially standardizes the color numbering system. So if you say, OK, Pantone color six digit number, they know exactly what color you're talking about. And so Pantone releases like their Color of the Year every year. This year it's called Very Perry, which is a periwinkle blue. And so I looked at last year's and, you know, given that we have this pandemic, I was very intrigued to find that the color name was Ultimate Gray. It's like, it's so down, like gray. I just missed. It last year, I must not have even looked at what the Pantone color of the year was last year, it didn't. It didn't even ring a bell to me, probably because it's gray. But that would be one of those things. It would actually make me wonder if they were actually more current and looking at what's going on in the world when they made that decision, or that was forecasted two years in advance. So that was an interesting question that was raised when I saw that ultimate gray was the color of the year last year in very Perry this year. And what they're saying, it's like daring curiosity. It's like we're kind of getting into color again, but we're not ready to go like shocking pink or yellow. You know, we're kind of emerging from our gray dens of last year.
Whitney Clay: Yeah, I could see how periwinkle is kind of crawling out of the gray.
Nicole Markelz: Yeah, exactly. The idea of like these color trends is kind of fascinating to me because it also gives you a timestamp. And something I like to do with my students is show them color samples from like 1995 and now and say which one is the current and everyone knows. So the whole kind of industry of color and fashion is really fascinating. They say we have control over like as consumers, but I don't think we really do. I think they're kind of telling us what we are going to like, and that's always available when you get to the store. The other thing that I think, I think is really interesting, I mentioned that you can typically tell what timeframe a particular color has come from kind of gets at this idea of planned obsolescence, kind of encouraging more consumption. Mm hmm. One of the things I like to focus on in fashion is sustainability, and the idea of the most sustainable way to produce a garment is to produce fewer of them and to keep your garments for longer. And so we talk a lot about in my sustainable design class what makes a garment last longer. And there's obvious things like, you know, the fabrication is the fabric you're using in to last through washes and and wears. And then there's the style of it. If it's a simple style without too many trend identifying features, then it'll last longer. And then the color is the biggest part of it. So the way you can get a garment to last longer is to make it in a color that's not trendy. And so black is really common you need because you're saying like browns or the browns can be tricky, and those like deep reds and things are a good way to create garments that are going to last through many, many seasons. So that's one of the things that I think would be valuable as a designer to kind of focus on. But then at the same time, you're kind of missing out on the kind of the fun trends and whatnot.
Whitney Clay: What about how do they get color into material?
Nicole Markelz: Oh, that's a great question. Well, so there is a lot of history behind that. You know, there's been various natural colors, natural dyes, things like Indigo or Kutch, things from beetles or plants that they extract color from. And those have been very good for garments and fabrication for a long time. But the problem with them is that they're not always reproducible, especially plant based or like these insect based colors, and they don't last forever. So with all the really harsh washing we do to our clothing, they don't last as long as some other alternatives. And so over time, they developed a number of synthetic dyes. And those are just pigments or dyes that have an affinity for different fabric types. So what chemicals will stick to cotton is not the same sort of chemicals that will stick to polyester, and it makes sense from a chemistry standpoint. And so those chemicals are notoriously bad for the environment, but they are often pretty good at sticking to the fabric. And they sometimes need other types of what they call mordants, things like salts or metal-based elements and compounds that will help those dye molecules stick to the fibers better. And those are also usually pretty bad for the environment. So we have a whole host of different types of synthetic dyes that we use for all of our different types of fibers. And and so they they they work pretty well. We are, as an industry, trying to move away from them because of their horrible environmental impacts. And so there are a number of different options that are kind of coming up on the horizon in research and development and things like that are better. And there's even things that are being used like water-free dyeing things like Nike and other companies that use polyester will use these water free dyeing techniques, carbon dioxide methodology of applying dye, so that there's no water involved, and all the dye molecules that are not attached to the fabric get recycled. And even the carbon dioxide is recycled and whatnot. So it's actually quite a good system of applying dye to polyester. It doesn't work for cotton, though. And then there's ways in which you can use biomimicry. So a lot of what we think about on the horizon, like what can we do better is actually looking at the way biology does these things – introduce waterproofing that mimics how animals or insects, even how plants make themselves waterproof – it'd be better than what we're using right now. Out, which your horrible chemicals? So one of the things they're looking at, or they have been for maybe about a decade now is looking at how we can kind of impart color on the fibers from a structural standpoint. So instead of using a pigment which gives color to the garment and as well as many other things, there are ways in which we can reflect light, specifically using chemical structures that make our eyes perceive color, where there really isn't color.
Whitney Clay: That's so interesting.
Nicole Markelz: So butterflies do that. And like morpho butterflies, butterflies that are blue. If you see, their wings will change color when they shift in the light, it's because they're not actually pigmented. They don't have a pigment molecule on them. Instead, the light is reflected to our eyeballs, and we perceive that as bluer, whatever the color is. And so with the advent of like nanotechnology, they've been able to put those kind of structural elements onto fibers and done like a case study where they have actually made fabric that looks blue but does not have any pigments on it. And it seems like I've only seen like two examples of it all this time. So whether they've just decided it's not worth their time, effort and money, or whether it's really difficult and they just haven't gotten too much further, I'm not sure, but I suspect maybe like the expense is probably not worth it yet. It always comes down to whether people are going to pay for it.
Whitney Clay: I can imagine talking about that kind of, I don't know, looking at the structural level would be really interesting to you because I know you have a biology background – so fun for the two disciplines to come together.
Whitney Clay: Yeah, it is actually. It's always interesting to me how how actually closely linked my biology background and my fiber science current job kind of come up together. They run into each other quite often. Yeah.
Whitney Clay: Which makes me think. Can you tell me more about that beetle?
Nicole Markelz: Oh yeah.
Whitney Clay: I've never heard of such a thing.
Nicole Markelz: They used to use it for its carmine. And it's from the cochineal and it's bright red, dark red color. And I've even seen it in cosmetics that use it too. And so it's been historically used as a red, as a red color in very dark, deep blood red.
Whitney Clay: They like, grind up the beetle? Really?
Nicole Markelz: Yeah. Yeah. And it's a good color, and I think it's pretty color fast, which means it stays pretty well on the fiber. But, you know, raising a boatload of beetles to kill them is, you know, not always the most sound process.
Whitney Clay: It's really interesting, though.
Nicole Markelz: Yeah, it is really interesting
Whitney Clay: When your students learn about color in your class, what is it that often surprises them?
Nicole Markelz: The class I teach right now is fabric science. It's like the level one. People coming in are usually really new to fashion in general. What is most shocking to them when they learn about color is actually just how awful color is for the environment and how much water it uses. And I'll show them pictures of things like in other countries where we do most of our textile production. They just let the wastewater from the dye factory just run into the rivers. You know, there's like this the same where you can tell what the color trends in Paris are based on the river color in China because it just runs free. If they have environmental laws about it, they're not enforced. And so the overall impact of these beautiful colors is what's really shocking to most students. Hopefully, that impression lasts for a while, but you know, the lure of color is so strong it's hard even for us people in the industry to extract ourselves from that. There's some cool things, too, like they're doing a lot more breeding of cotton, so it's naturally colored. Best quality cotton is pure white, and there's been some selective breeding, so not genetic engineering. Actually, it's selective breeding to make cotton that's green and brown. So when you harvest it, it's already that color and you can just go ahead and make stuff out of it without having to dye it at all. You know, there's there's ways to do better if we're aware of what we're doing wrong, I guess, with color.
Whitney Clay: Well, thank you so much. Nicole, this has been absolutely fascinating. Thanks for talking with us about your world of color in fashion.
Nicole Markelz: Well, thank you so much for having me, Whitney. It was so much fun to talk about it.