Twelve shades of grey, indexed

We keep a wall in the studio. It is six metres long and three metres high and it holds a single swatch of every grey we have ever worked with, sewn in chronological order.

At the far left, in 2018, is the first: a brushed wool from Biella we called Ash. It is darker than I remember.

At the far right, this week, is Fog — a long, soft cashmere we will release in October. It looks like the inside of a cloud.

Between them are eighty-two greys. We have given each one a name. Ash, of course. Smoke, slate, cement, dove. Fog, gunmetal, oyster, pewter. Mushroom, dust, shadow. Cinder. Pumice. The colour of an old film negative held up to a north-facing window in February.

It is, I think, the only honest archive a studio like ours can keep. Each entry is a record of a question we were asking that season — about the weight of a coat, the drape of a trouser, the precise distance between a fabric and the body that wears it.