Color Forecasting

With the tremendous growth of the dye industry came the need to promote these new colors and dye formulations. The German dye companies were the first to tackle this problem with the creation of color handbooks. The success of these handbooks led the French dye industry to create the earliest color forecasting tool, the color or shade card. These cards were issued six months ahead of the season and identified colors with both a name and a number, which cut down on cultural confusion. American manufacturers founded their own color forecasting organization, the Textile Color Card Association, in 1915. This group would become the Color Association of the United States in 1955 and continues to produce color cards to this day.