Shaw Contract Introduces New Curated Colorways for Iconic Collection

Shaw Contract, a design leader in commercial flooring solutions and surfaces, is excited to announce that Dye Lab, a best-selling collection, now has an expanded color range with thirteen unique, new saturated hues. Dye Lab brings lush intimacy or expansive and dramatic floorscapes to the spaces where we work, rest and come together.

The impact of color on the built environment, and how color shapes our experiences within a given space, are increasingly top of mind among today’s designers. For the re-introduction of the iconic Dye Lab collection, the Shaw Contract Design Studio conducted extensive research on color to enhance the collection with newly curated colorways. After conducting hundreds of dye experiments to establish the color palette and understand tonal variation, the team challenged the traditional beck dye process and developed an innovative approach to the dyeing that creates an unpredictable, varied and bespoke visual.

“To create the visual for Dye Lab, we confronted our process and challenged manufacturing to forget everything they thought they knew about how piece-dyed product was made,” explains Ashley Olson, Design Manager for Shaw Contract Workplace Studio. “We altered the status quo to create a product that is truly unique.”

Dye Lab’s palette draws upon nature, a color journey which included the exploration of more than 20 dyes including madder root, Osage orange, sandalwood and henna. Inspired by colors produced with natural and plant-based ingredients, the collection contains hundreds of mutable variations, subtle ranges of luxe color and texture. No two carpet tiles are ever the same – each installation a bespoke work.

Each carpet tile in the Dye Lab collection features color ranges from light to medium to dark, from subtle to rich. By keeping the most beloved colors from the original collection and adding a variety of new shades, an updated palette unfolds, one that is both contemporary, timeless and always sophisticated. The refreshed collection features intense saturated hues, softer washes and a wider range of neutral tones.

Dye Lab challenges the process — the Shaw Contract design team was inspired by traditional textile dyeing techniques where fabric is woven, twisted, bundled dipped and dyed to produce an ultimately varied result. The collection’s innovative manufacturing process mimics this technique and yields an unprecedented depth to the color with artful, random nuances, progressing from light to saturated — an irregular beauty, harmonious with the natural world.