This year marks the 20th anniversary of Dashing Tweeds. Kirsty and I started the company with the sole aim of bringing more colour and excitement into your lives. We wanted to enrich clothing by offering gloriously thoughtful fabric designs, each year we have worked hard to bring you something new and this year is no exception.

Wild Beasts have inspired our new collection this autumn. The beasts in question are not actual animals but rather spring from a group of painters in the early 20th century. The artists used such bright colours and savage strokes of the brush that they became know as “Les Fauves” – The Wild Beasts. Interestingly some of the art works originated in London with André Derain painting Charing Cross Bridge in bright blue, framed by vermillion trees against a flaming yellow sky. Claude Monet painted London views from his room at the Savoy Hotel, capturing Waterloo lost in ethereal fog and surreal colours.

We have taken these bold visions and the free use of colour to inform our glorious new tweed designs.

Our ‘Wild’ design incapsulates the whole mood of the painting genre. The unashamedly large scale check sets the tone, a neutral grey against a rowdy riot of burnt sienna, orange and purple, brought to harmony with the use of dark navy yarns that settle the fabric into a very wearable design.

I like to think of clothes as wearable works of art and a coat tailored in our ‘Wild’ would definitely fit this brief. The fabric weighs in at 16oz and is 100% British wool.

‘Maurice’ is the name for our radiant orange and red check, named after Maurice de Vlaminck who used raw paint tones in the most daring way. The check is an elegant 4 inch rectangle against a dark grey ground and woven in a wool with a brushed finish. The effect of the brushing is to merge the yarn tones and give an almost luminous quality to the fabric. At 16-17oz the Maurice design tailors into a magnificent coat (which we are launching later this month) and will blend into the radiant autumnal scenes of the eponymous painter.

Normandy, Honfleur and Charing Cross are all names we have given to our soft Donegal tweeds. The wool yarn for these designs are famous for their daubs of colour and aesthetically pleasing to use with The Fauvists in mind.

The ‘Normandy’ design is predominately emerald green with a strong diagonal twill running across the verticals of black, grey, lime green and burgundy. The cloth seems both classic and modern at the same time and with the easy set of the yarns it drapes beautifully and feels lighter than its weight of 16oz may suggest.

For more subdued occasions our ‘Honfleur’ design in soft Donegal strikes a balance between a creative texture and the elegance of navy blue. The strong dark blue twill dominates the design and matches the warp threads, creating parallelogram shapes diagonally across the fabric in a most pleasing way. The fabric weighs 16oz, ideal for unlined jackets and soft tailoring.

Our ‘Charing Cross’ design in soft Donegal wool is a warm ochre version of the green ‘Normandy’ tweed. The overall effect of the 16oz cloth harks back to the palette used in the more colourful eras of fashion. The dark verticals are reminiscent of brush stokes and the cloth will fit with your wardrobe as the summer sun starts to set lower in the sky and give us all a diffuse glow.

To complete our collection we have added three new basket weave designs, extending the colour range of these very successful patterns. They are all woven in wonderfully thick wool and end up creating a fabulous 26oz cloth suitable for luxuriously warm overcoats. The most striking of the designs is ‘Viridian’, bright green and navy yarns jostle to create a vibrant basket weave effect that brings joy to all around.

The basket weave pattern with navy and oatmeal yarns creates a striking graphic design; an instant classic that will go with anything, we have named this ‘Marquet’ after the eponymous Albert, a life long friend of Matisse and a pioneering Fauvist.

In the ‘Prussian’ design we have used two very similar navy yarns to subtle effect. One of the yarns features neps in dark shades making the basket weave pattern of the design very subdued and creating an overall effect of texture in a very sophisticated way. At 26oz the Prussian cloth can be used for coats, unlined jackets or perhaps ski attire.

All our cloths are available by the metre to can be used through our tailoring too. We have also designed a new range of bomber jackets, raglan and body coats, so watch this space for them launching soon!