Long before a new season of Toad&Co clothes hits your inbox, or your social feed (and then ultimately, your closet), our design team is hard at work – pulling fabric inspiration, trend spotting, mood boarding, and sketching away. We sat down with Guin and Helena to peek behind the scenes at how our newest fall collection came to life.

Toad&Co: What was your initial inspiration for the Fall '22 season?

Guin: We were very inspired by cold weather, the playful side of winter activities, and making wherever you are your "funland"...though we leaned into some Nordic countries for pattern inspiration. We were heavily inspired by fairisles and cable sweaters. 

Toad: Tell us more about making wherever you are your "funland." 

Guin: We like to call it "Funlandia" – a play on Finlandia, though not limited to this region. Skiing and après, snowshoeing, ice skating, snowball fights, sledding...you know, activities that make you feel like a kid again. The comedy of shoveling your car out on the annual blizzard night. Enjoying the glow of a fire and warming up with a hot toddy. 

Toad: OK, we're totally ready for some winter activities (and probably a hot toddy or two) now. We also love the color palette and prints this season – can you tell us more about that?

Helena: Winterberry continues to play an important role as a bright red with some vintage reference. A new color this season is glacier: one of our favorites that layers in nicely as a crisp and clean blue...it wears easily and plays well with others. We played more with purples this season and added a nice rich plum called fig. We also love a new velvety, deep blue called Sea Blue (also the name of the blue color used in the Finnish flag). 

Ruska is another new color we used a lot this season (in Finnish, Ruska refers to the Autumn season). 

Antler is one of our favorite new funky colors and it lives somewhere between mustard and olive. We love the juxtaposition of some of our brighter, cleaner colors with this vintage-inspired neutral. Straw is also becoming an important new neutral – a yellow leaning color that harkens back to Grandpa's old fisherman's sweaters (you know the ones...). 

And we have a few accent colors that cut through with a bit of brightness – Fjord, an interesting blue inspired by the turquoise waters of this region in Norway; and Aurora, a greener turquoise whose namesake comes from the dazzling effects of the Northern Lights. 

We could go on and on about prints, but a few fun notes: Big Sky Vine Print used in our Samba fabric was inspired by a vintage dress we found in L.A...and the motifs used in the Foothill prints this season were inspired by illustrations in holiday books from Guin's childhood.