In 1965, the renowned textile designer, Bernat Klein, launched a series of Personal Colour Guides, designed to help customers choose clothes for themselves based on what colours suited them rather than following fashion trends. Klein analysed the colours of six iris types in paint and based on this, produced a general guide to the colours and tones which he thought would be most complimentary when worn. In doing so, he was at the forefront of the consumer ‘colour analysis’ industry, advocating his approach to choosing colours some 15 years before Carole Jackson published Colour Me Beautiful (1980) or Bernice Kentner published A Rainbow in Your Eyes (1981). Klein’s semi-autobiographical work, Eye for Colour accompanied the launch of the Personal Colour Guides and in it he explains that ‘the main purpose of the colour guides is to help people, men as well as women, to dress better – in the broad, permanent, non-fashion sense of the word; to add good colour sense to their fashion sense; to develop their colour sense – to make them more aware of colours in themselves and in cloths, garments and accessories, to enable them to analyse their own colouring and then enjoy the harmonies and discords that they themselves can create and achieve if they wish to use their sense of colour actively.’ (Klein, 1965. p104)
The 'Eye for Colour' Symposium was devoted to exploring the role that colour might play in changing models of fashion consumption and promoting ‘slow’ textiles. With a keynote lecture delivered by the leading textile historian, Mary Schoeser, the Symposium was open to the general public and involved 12 academics and independent researchers speaking on themes connected with:
• Colour forecasting and its influence on the fashion industry
• Sustainable production linked to these supporting narratives and colour trends
• Personal colour choice and its intersection with cultural and commercial determinations
• Colour and clothing, and its use in the creation of distinctive identities or signature styles
• Colour in slow fashion and the increasing use of archive references
Presentations were made by: Suchitra Choudry (independent); Lynn Wilson (Zero Waste Scotland); Maija Nygren (independent); Dr. Susan Kay-Williams (Royal School of Needlework); Jenny Balfour-Paul (University of Exeter); Karen Finlayston (independent); Dr. Tracy Cassidy (University of Huddersfield); Helen Taylor (Heriot-Watt University); Fiona Anderson (ECA); Grainne Rice (National Galleries of Scotland.)
