Textile Color Swatch

Asian textile direction

Japanese Indigo textile color palette

Japanese Indigo is built around the practical beauty of dark blue cloth, faded seams, rice-paper lightness, and sumi-black contrast. It is useful for denim, workwear, sashiko-inspired stitching, boro-style repairs, and textile systems where the blue range needs both depth and visible wear.

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Regional TextilesDye Stories

Textile Direction

How to use Japanese Indigo

Best For

  • denim programs
  • workwear capsules
  • stitched repairs
  • quiet home textiles

Materials

  • selvedge denim
  • cotton twill
  • linen canvas
  • slub cotton

Color Roles

  • Use sumi black and the deepest indigo for labels, hardware, and structural trims.
  • Use the middle blues for main cloth, patched panels, and tonal embroidery.
  • Use rice paper and washed blue for linings, contrast stitching, and digital backgrounds.

Color Specs

Palette values and contrast notes

Use these values as digital starting points, then approve final textile standards on the real fabric or substrate.

6 colors
SwatchRoleHEXRGBHSLApprox CMYKText Contrast
Anchor
Depth
Mid tone
Bridge
Ground
Highlight

Developer Handoff

CSS variables

Copy the palette as CSS custom properties.

--palette-1: #111827;
--palette-2: #1E2F4F;
--palette-3: #2E4F7C;
--palette-4: #5C7FA6;
--palette-5: #B7C7D8;
--palette-6: #F3EFE2;

Tailwind v4 theme

Use these tokens as palette utilities like bg-palette-1 and text-palette-1.

Copy the palette as Tailwind v4 theme color tokens.

@theme {
  --color-palette-1: #111827;
  --color-palette-2: #1E2F4F;
  --color-palette-3: #2E4F7C;
  --color-palette-4: #5C7FA6;
  --color-palette-5: #B7C7D8;
  --color-palette-6: #F3EFE2;
}