Every week somebody tells us their bag arrived a different colour from the photograph. Almost every time, both are accurate. Colour is a property of light and eyes as much as of fabric, and screens are unreliable narrators.
Your screen is guessing
A screen makes colour by combining red, green and blue light. Fabric colour comes from pigment absorbing light. Those two systems overlap but do not match, so a screen is always approximating. Add an uncalibrated panel, a night-shift warm filter, or a brightness setting at 40 percent, and the same photograph becomes three different colours.
Phone screens are typically saturated and cool, laptop panels are dimmer and warmer, and external monitors vary wildly. If you are matching a bag to a specific garment, do not trust any of them at face value.
Daylight changes everything
We photograph in north-facing daylight with a colour reference card in frame, and we do not correct the fabric towards a prettier shade. That means our photographs are honest about our studio on a cloudy Portuguese morning, which is not the same as honest about your kitchen at seven in the evening.
Waxed canvas also changes with wear. A sage bag after a year in daylight is warmer and slightly paler than the same bag new, because the wax film thins and the cotton underneath shows more. Nobody photographs the year-old version, which is a shame.
Dye lots and why we mention them
Fabric is dyed in batches, and each batch varies slightly. When a colour sells well we order a new batch and it comes back a shade different — sometimes greener, sometimes greyer. When the difference is visible we say so on the product page and photograph the new batch beside the old one.
Yarn is worse than fabric, which is why hand-dyed skeins carry a dye lot number. If you are buying multiple skeins for one project, buy them together. We cannot guarantee that a reorder will match the first batch, and neither can anyone else.
How to be sure
Look at our photographs on two devices. Check the product page for a dye lot note. If a colour is critical, ask us for a photograph in daylight, and consider ordering a single small item first to see the fabric in your own home. It is slower, and it is the only way to be certain.