EARTH vs. MARS: One system, two colorways
Every FIELD // LAB concept is designed in two colorways. The patterns, pockets and interfaces stay identical. Only the color system changes.
BY FIELD // LAB / / 2 MIN READ
Why only two.
Plenty of apparel brands offer each product in five or six colors. We're starting with two. We call them environments because each one is a full palette meant to work across the whole system.
An EARTH overshirt is designed to go with EARTH pants, an EARTH fleece and an EARTH pack. The same goes for MARS. You can mix them. The point is that a full outfit in one environment should look intentional without any thought.
EARTH is Northern California.
EARTH comes from San Francisco and the land around it. Fog gray, eucalyptus, wet concrete, the dark greens of the headlands. It is the palette for commutes, offices and city streets, which is why the label reads EARTH / URBAN.
You can see it in the concepts. The field socks come in camo green. The Meridian Runner comes in pine green.
We picked muted colors on purpose. The clothes go to offices, onto bikes and through airports, and they should look right in all three without drawing attention.
MARS is an expedition palette.
MARS draws on expedition colors and mineral landscapes: rust, burnt sierra, dust and pale stone. Its label reads MARS / EXPEDITION. In the concepts, the field socks come in burnt sierra orange and the Meridian Runner in fog bone.
About the name. MARS is a color system. It does not mean any product is designed, tested or rated for spaceflight or a planetary environment. Our founder runs a space company, and the name nods to that world. The clothing is for ordinary days on this planet.
MARS is the warmer and louder of the two. It suits people who want their kit to stand out a little, and it still pairs with the same base layers.
The manufacturing reason.
Two colorways is also a production decision. Each color of each product in each size is its own SKU. The four Drop 001 products across six sizes and two colorways already add up to 48 variants.
Factories set minimum order quantities, and fabric mills often set minimums for each dyed color. A small first run split across six colors would leave each color below those minimums, or force us to buy fabric we can't justify. Two colors keep each color's quantity high enough to be realistic for a first drop.
It also keeps the details manageable. Zipper pulls, thread, labels and trims all have to match each palette. Fewer palettes mean fewer color approvals and fewer mismatches to catch.
One system underneath.
EARTH and MARS share patterns and interfaces, so nothing functional changes between them. The Axis Pant pocket placement is the same in both. A MARS Command Pack is meant to dock to an EARTH Horizon Carry-On, once the Dock is engineered. A Nexus pouch moves between bags regardless of color. If you own an EARTH Axis Pant and later add a MARS one, the fit and pockets are designed to be identical.
The colors are still concepts. A render shows intent, and dyed fabric looks different in daylight, under office lights and on a phone screen. Final shades get set when we approve real fabric with a factory, and some of them will probably shift.
Products in this note.
Keep reading.
04. Building the FIELD // LAB Dock standard06. From render to factory: how Drop 001 gets made