It’s development time here at Finch and Belle HQ…. Kim has done her research, pulled together ideas that she likes, photos for inspiration, a colour palette and we are good to go! As she briefs Graham and I we start to develop new swatches, knit downs on the machine is always the quickest and easiest way to discover if an idea is going to work. While Graham sets to – working with the factory in Turkey, Faye and the Design team start adding new patterns and textures to meet Kim’s brief.
All the boxes in the background are full of development ideas, and yarn books so we are spoilt for options and choices which we have to streamline down to what product Kim wants to achieve!! Oh trust me, it’s fun!!
The stool is an inspiration from Kim for a cable texture, it is much chunkier than we can achieve on a sock but we can certainly develop a raised diamond texture so Graham sets to work! We have lots of colours to choose from in our shade books which is a designers dream! Kim has chosen an on trend muted pastels colour palette of dusky pinks and aquas with easy base colours like creams and denim and grey marls for the Casual and City ranges. For the Occasion range we stick to what works best – black with sparkle!!
When the samples come in from the factory – we try them on, review the handfeels, colours and designs and fine tune them so they are spot on! Kim has a great eye for detail so her critics are what make the socks as beautiful as they are when finished!
