The collection that looks coherent on a screen often splits in the dyehouse. Court nylon and swim nylon do not take the same dye class, and a phone photo by a window is not a standard. This is how we ask designers to approve colour when the line crosses studio, course and water.
A dye lot lives on PowerForm™ or on AquaForm™. Not across both.
D65, store light, or daylight. “Looks right on my phone” is not a lamp.
Approve the lightest colour. Black conceals sheer, metamerism and a weak dye.
Swim colour in the bath is not the hanger dip.
Three bases, three ways colour fails
PowerForm™, 215 g/m², is the structured hand for yoga that must cover and for court pieces that should not bag. AirTouch™, about 195 g/m², is cooler and shows more of what the dye and the knit are doing; pale colours go sheer here first. AquaForm™, 220 g/m², is the swim face. Chlorine fastness is a test you specify for the programme. It is not a sticker we print on every style because the cloth is called swim.
A “stone” you loved on a PowerForm™ skort will not fall out of an AquaForm™ pot as the same stone. If the lookbook needs them to feel related, write “related, not matched” on the board, and approve two physical dips. Designers who write one Pantone for three bases spend a month learning this in courier fees.
Name the light or argue forever
Pick the lamp before the first dip: D65 if you have no store standard, or the lamp your wholesale buyer already uses. View the dip next to the standard, not next to last season’s garment unless that garment is the standard. Metamerism — a pair that matches at noon and splits under warm retail light — is ordinary on nylon. It is also ordinary for people to notice it only after the bulk is cut.
We keep a dip ID, a date, and the lamp name. “Approved in the WeChat thread” is not an ID. The rescue when bulk drifts after an approved dip is written up in bulk colour drift.
Dry dip is not a water approval
On swim, sign the dry dip for shade and the wet check for what the customer sees in a pool: opacity of pale grounds, lining show-through, and whether the hardware colour still belongs to the cloth when it is wet. Chlorine, sea water and light exposure are separate lines on a test plan. Ask for the report you will actually file. Do not ask us to claim a result that was only a suggestion in the brief.
Lining dye is its own dip if the lining is a different fibre or a contrast colour. Sharing a face dye lot between top and bottom works when both are cut from the same AquaForm™. It does not work because both are “navy.”
Court white and pale yoga neutrals
Optical white on a tennis dress can yellow after the wash you put on the care label. If the product page will say bright white, wash the sample before you approve it. Pale yoga neutrals fail by going sheer, not by going yellow. Same word on the board, different gate. AirTouch™ needs that gate more than PowerForm™.
Golf programmes that want a quiet, slightly covered hand should not drift into a brushed face to “feel expensive” unless you have accepted the wear and the pilling story of that finish. Brushing is a decision. It is on brushed vs non-brushed.
Write the shade band before cutting
Before bulk is cut, write how far the lot may sit from the approved dip, in the lamp you named. If you cannot describe it, you do not have an approval, you have a hope. Body, binding and elastic that must look like one colour are three materials. One colour, three fabrics is the failure mode.
Commercial side, so design and buying do not invent it later: standard MOQ 150 pcs / style / colour, samples US$50–100 per garment piece, custom colour on an exclusive cloth only when you are ready for mill metreage. Send the dips with the brief through the designer desk.