The perfect shade of grey

The Small Home had a problem going grey.

Finding the perfect grey to extend the colour range of our ladies' slipper styles was proving tricky.

When it came to creating moccasin slippers in a pretty soft grey, instead of the elegant tones of smoke or dove, the colour was reminiscent of, well, elephant hide.

And no shade to elephants, but that dull beige grey just wasn’t right. 

Ever the perfectionist, my creative vision wanted the untreated leather sole, the dyed leather upper and the genuine sheepskin fur to match in a pleasing symphony of grey.

And so the samples went back and forth between the skilled workers in the tannery, the artisan sole makers in the Tatra mountains in Poland and The Small Home HQ.

We must have attempted at least 50 shades, still no graceful grey.

The human eye can apparently distinguish around 500 different shades of grey. I felt I’d seen 499 of them.

But none was The Small Home grey.

They were too silver, too battleship, too dead mouse, too sombre, too granite.

It seemed the only grey I could conjure up was in my hair as the search seemed fruitless!

Then finally, we got the grey. 

It had the right blend of cool and warmth; the right amount of light and shade.

It was a graceful grey, just right for our women's sheepskin slippers, slipper boots and mule slippers.

So meet our graceful grey edit, born out of perfectionism, and we hope you agree, well worth the effort (and my extra grey hairs!)

Aperol: our graceful grey with a sharp shot of bold orange.

Aphrodite, our elegant grey teamed with a tender pale pink embroidery.

Smoke, our women's slipper boot in warm grey.

And Salt Plains, our blue-grey beauties, inspired by the Great Salt Plains after which they are named.