Even though we deal in vintage linen and lace and stock a myriad of colors, we still try to coördinate our offerings with the seasons.  Our buyers are often craft or decorating people with upcoming special projects they are building months in advance.   Still, color and fabric type are important.

It’s winter as I write this and we find a lot of our wool and embroidered products going fast.  Anything blended that has wool goes quick as well.  Silk is popular with us and proper year round but the lighter silks for dresses and skirts are more summer wear while the heavier, multi-layered silks are right during the winter.   Summer is for lightweight cotton, light weight silk and linen.  Fabrics that have a loose weave and are made of a breathable fabric are great for summer. Fall is the season for wool.  Heavy weight cotton is also appropriate.  Spring is similar in terms of fabrics but you can also wear summer weights during spring.  Here in Colorado we tend to “layer” ourselves in both summer and fall weights.

We also look at colors of the season.  Traditionally winter colors are the darkest and much of our displays today have dark colors showing.  Starting with the blacks, winter colors go to charcoal, grey, browns, olives, golden’s, navy, burgundy, so on. )  Summer is the greatest pastel season (pale pink, butter yellow, baby blue, light mint, crisp white, etc)  Again, fall is often full of rusts, olives, camels, beige, light browns and so on.   Spring is light blues, roses, aqua’s, beige, and so on.   We are getting ready to rotate our stock from winter to spring.  (We do this months in advance because people are already starting to think of their spring projects.)

Don’t rely on color for what to wear.  Designers are using all colors in all seasons and craft people should follow suit.  Winter white is very popular and black is still a year round color.

The other day for example, a woman walked in and asked if we had any Hawaiian prints.  We had one or two, but a large selection is hard to find.  Here it is – dead of winter and she wants Hawaiian prints.  She said if we were vintage we should stock more Hawaiian.  After all it was very popular in the 70’s.  Go figure.

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