Tropical Crabs, My Muse

It's strange where designers and artists find their inspiration.  Usually it's pretty obvious where the inspiration for a design comes from; a seasonal flower, colours of the ocean and spring time blah blah blah, but last week while researching my blog on the colour coral I got completely sidetracked by crabs.

I know that lots of people will be recoiling in horror right now as, lets face it, crabs are really just spiders with shells that can grow into massive sea beasts…

I also found out that they can climb trees which is positively terrifying!

Now I am not suggesting that you go and make a hat out of a crab…

or take the idea of crab inspiration literally, although it has worked for some people before so hey if you can pull it off go for it.

But when it comes to mixing up the colour palette and rocking clashing colours these creepy little guys have it perfected!

So next time you are thinking what outfit to wear to the races, a friends wedding or the supermarket take inspiration from these little dudes and go for the pale pink with red spots and a flash of neon yellow :)

Below are some hats that made me think of crabs (in the best possible way).

Just for the record, Octopus are pretty damn funky too.

The Endless Possibilities of Coral?

I never really got coral, the colour that is.

I think this is partly because in my head it merged into my general disregard of pastels (as discussed last week) and partly because whenever a customer asked me for a coral hat they were never really sure which colour they meant.  It seems that everyone has a different idea of what colour Coral actually is with opinions varying anywhere between hot pink through pastel peach to terracotta orange.

Which in a way makes sense, as in nature coral is all of those colours. 

Doesn't really help me and my lovely ladies decide which colour is meant when we say coral though.

Anyhow, recently I was forced to put my natural shudder reflex aside and take a fresh look at coral, as one of my besties is getting married and coral was thrown out there as a colour theme, so off to google I went and found this:

It was cute, really cute, so I went looking for more and found that contrary to my pastel perception coral can actually be a really strong colour and goes with so many contrasting colours (you guys know how much I love a contrasting outfit) that it could be my favourite new colour to replace the little black hat to match everything.

Coral and green, coral and teal, coral and blue, coral and yellow, coral and gold, coral and silver, coral and purple, coral and black, coral and raspberry…the possibilities are endless!

And so I have put in my order for some coral sinamey and am impatiently awaiting its arrival and the flood of bold contrast hats that will follow.  Until then I have gathered some examples of coral hats already out there awaiting your bright lime green dress you were thinking about wearing to your next big do :)

Enjoy