Colour Matching: Why "Navy" Is Not a Specification
By The Velocity Wear Team
Colour causes more disagreement in apparel production than any other single variable, and nearly all of it comes from the same root: colour was described in words. "Navy" is a family containing dozens of distinguishable shades. "Off-white" is barely a description at all. A reference number is the only thing two parties in different places can both point at.
Two different colour problems
Worth separating, because they behave differently. Ink colour is what gets printed onto the garment, and it can be mixed to a Pantone reference with real precision. Garment colour is the colour of the fabric itself, which comes from a dye process on a specific batch of material and has inherently more variation.
You can match ink tightly. You can specify garment colour and get close, and the closeness is limited by the dyeing process rather than by anybody's care. Knowing which of the two you are discussing prevents a lot of confusion.
Use Pantone, and use the right one
Give a Pantone reference for every colour in your artwork. One detail matters: the same reference looks different on coated and uncoated stock, and there is a separate textile system for fabric. Specify which you mean rather than just the number, because the same digits describe different colours in different books.
And do not pick a Pantone from a screen. Monitors vary enormously and none of them is a reliable reference for a physical ink. If colour genuinely matters to your brand, a physical swatch book is a worthwhile purchase and it will pay for itself the first time it prevents a disputed run.
What the fabric does to your ink
A colour does not print the same on every base. On a white garment, ink sits on a neutral ground and appears close to its reference. On a coloured garment, the base shows through unless there is an underbase beneath the colour, and without one your bright red on navy will be a dull maroon.
Fabric texture matters too — the same ink on a smooth combed cotton and a coarse open knit will not read identically, because the surface is doing different things to the light. This is a reason to approve colour on the actual garment rather than on a proof.
Dye lots and repeat orders
- Garments dyed in different batches can differ slightly even against the same specification. It is a property of the process, not a defect.
- It only becomes visible when garments from different lots hang together, which is exactly what happens on your own rail and in a customer's wardrobe.
- Where continuity matters — a core colour you will reorder for years — ask whether a repeat run can be cut from the same lot, and plan larger single runs for that specific colour.
- Keep a retained garment from every run as a physical reference. A photograph is not reliable for this; keep the actual thing.
Approve on the garment
The only approval that means anything is a physical sample of your artwork on your fabric in your colour, looked at in daylight. Screens lie, proofs on paper lie, and the difference between an approved sample and an approved PDF is the difference between knowing and hoping.
Look at it in more than one light, too. Metamerism — two colours matching under one light source and not another — is real, and a match approved under a warm office light can look wrong outside.
Build a colour standard early
Write down your brand colours as Pantone references, in the right system, with the version to use on light and dark grounds, and keep it with your artwork files. It takes an hour and it means every future order, every label, every hang tag and every reorder specifies colour the same way.
Colour drift across a range is one of the fastest ways a small brand looks unconsidered, and it is entirely preventable at the specification stage.
