PATTERNS IN THE HAIR

Patterns in the Hair

Every piece needs a companion. Colour in a Dark World© has one now.

Where that piece lives in wefts — patterned strips mounted onto a canvas, cut diagonally, sharp and moving — this one lives on a bob. Same instinct, same restraint, different geometry entirely. If the long piece zigzags, this one stacks: black breaking into red through the fringe, a wide band of dusty orange beneath it, black again below that. Horizontal, not diagonal. Blocked, not blended.

It started black. Getting it to lift meant a slow, patient process — bleach, rinse, condition, repeat, and repeat again — coaxing colour out gradually rather than forcing it. What came through wasn't the clean, vibrant orange you'd expect from human hair lifting through the usual levels. It had a dustier, more muted quality — less flame, more embers under ash. I could have fought harder for gold. I didn't. The muted tone ended up saying something truer about restraint than a brighter one would have.

If you know your textiles, you might see something familiar in both pieces. The diagonal piece has a kinship with bargello — a needlework technique built from zigzagging peaks of colour, worked in flame-like repeats. This one leans closer to ikat — a weaving tradition where yarn is resist-dyed before it's ever woven, giving that soft, feathered bleed between colour zones rather than a hard line. Neither piece is trying to be those things. They're not woven, they're not textile at all — they're hair, worked directly. But the visual language crosses over, and I like that it does. I'll let you make of that what you will.

What I care about more than any of that is how it's worn. I don't want alternative colour work to read as costume. There's a sophistication I'm chasing — a little panache, a little restraint, colour that could sit under a black turtleneck and a well-cut dress without apology. Bold doesn't have to mean loud. It can just as easily mean composed.

A note on process: some images here were developed through AI reinterpretation (Grok by xAI), reimagining the original hand-worked piece in an editorial setting. The pattern, the colour, and the technique are entirely my own work — the AI stage is a styling exercise, not a substitute for it.

You don't need to understand a pattern to feel something looking at it. That's really all I'm asking of you here.