Color Science Symposium Hosted by the College of Textiles

The College of Textiles hosted the AATCC Color Science Symposium titled, Color Innovations 2002:  Concepts, Communications, and Control on June 3-4, 2002.  The program was designed for all sectors of the textile industry that are involved with color from designers to retailers and from dyers and printers to engineers.  There were approximately 175 attendees from all over the country present.  Many major companies were represented, including the principle color managers from The Gap, Nike, Adidas, Target, The Limited, Wal-Mart, Datacolor, Milliken, and Unifi.  The attendance was much larger than expected, so large in fact that our largest classroom was not big enough.  Therefore, the conference was broadcast live in one of the smaller classrooms as well.  

The keynote presentation was given by Carrie Yates of Cotton Incorporated.  She revealed Cotton’s color and trend forecast for fall/winter 2003-2004.  You may be thinking, that is very far in advance to predict color, but they project 18-22 months ahead of the retail season.  These trends influence purchasing and fabrication decisions, thus affecting the market for cotton, and cotton-rich fabrics.

Datacolor International was one of several companies that described the new technology of digital color communication.   Chris Hipps of Datacolor described the opportunities that exist for eliminating the need for  posting physical samples by accurately displaying images of standards on a calibrated monitor.  Hence, ‘virtual’ color standards are becoming a reality, which could help drastically reduce the time from concept to market.

Other presentations that were given included a session on lighting.  One of the speakers here was Kevin Loughrey, from GretagMacbeth LLC.  Lighting is so important to how we see color.  Mr. Loughrey, stated, “Without light, there is no color.”  Colleges are starting to teach about lighting.  And of course we do here at the College of Textiles.  Mr. Loughrey spoke about the variety of lighting found in both retail locations and in the textile industry, represent differences in lighting quality.  It is important that these lighting differences be recognized and controlled if possible.  He provided information about lighting that will assist people involved in the approval of color.

Have you ever wanted to know some of Victoria’s Secrets?  Well, Andrew N. Fraser, manager of Victoria’s Secret’s Color and Physical Testing Division, discussed the importance of speed to market in today’s competitive environment.  He explained how a missed color could impact the success or failure of a program.  He also spoke about the color standards for his company and how the color development process is initiated.

The conference proved to be a success for AATCC and the College of Textiles was happy to host the event.  The attendees at the Symposium, including sixteen members of our students and faculty here at the college, enjoyed the opportunity to learn about state-of-the-art color technology.  And as always symposia such as these allow all involved to network and learn how we can help each other in this new world of textiles. 

To learn more about AATCC please visit www.aatcc.org.  To learn more about textile chemistry and color scienceplease visit http www.tx.ncsu.edu/departments/tecs/textile_chem.html.