Textile designer Yvonne Koné

Yvonne Koné on Colour

"How do I want to feel?"

For Yvonne Koné, that question comes before every decision about colour. Rather than following rules or fixed palettes, she works intuitively, allowing memory, atmosphere and emotion to guide each choice. Colour becomes less about decoration than about creating spaces that feel honest, familiar and easy to live in.

Based in Copenhagen, Yvonne Koné is a trained textile designer and founder of the fashion brand Lafine. Across fashion, interiors and creative direction, her work explores the relationship between colour, material and craftsmanship, always with a strong emphasis on longevity, quality and emotional connection. Her collection for Blēo, Safe Place, reflects the same philosophy: a palette designed not to transform a home, but to help people feel at home within it.

In this conversation, Koné reflects on memory, intuition and why colour is often the first thing she remembers about a place.

Beginning with a feeling

Koné rarely starts with a colour.

She starts with an atmosphere.

Rather than asking whether a room should be blue, green or neutral, she asks herself a different question.

"How do I want to feel here?"

Calm.

Focused.

Comfortable.

Creative.

The answer becomes the foundation of every palette.

"I don't work with strict rules."

"I want people to trust themselves."

For Koné, colour should never become something to get right. It should become something personal.

Collecting impressions

Colour has a habit of appearing unexpectedly.

A faded wall on a quiet street.

Laundry drying in afternoon sunlight.

A passing reflection that disappears only seconds later.

"I've stopped traffic before just to photograph a colour."

Over the years she has mixed thousands of colours, yet many of the ones that stay with her never exist as physical samples.

Instead, they remain as memories.

Quiet observations collected over time.

Living with colour

Choosing colour has become a ritual.

For almost twenty years Koné has repainted her own home regularly, not because she enjoys painting, but because she values the feeling that follows.

"It changes everything."

A different colour changes the atmosphere of a room.

The way light moves.

The way mornings begin.

The way a home feels at the end of the day.

One year she chose a ready-mixed grey instead of developing the colour herself.

"I've been living with that shadow ever since."

The experience confirmed something she had always believed.

Colour becomes part of everyday life.

Not simply something we look at.

Making room for creativity

Despite working with colour every day, Koné surrounds herself with remarkably quiet interiors.

Her workspace remains simple, calm and functional.

Walls painted in Milky Lavender and Putty create a gentle backdrop for textiles, sketches and material samples.

"There is already enough colour in my work."

The space around her exists to create clarity.

Not stimulation.

Remembering places

When Koné thinks back to a place, colour is often what returns first.

Not furniture.

Not objects.

Not architecture.

Instead, she remembers the softness of a wall, the warmth of afternoon light or the way one muted colour quietly met another.

Those impressions become the beginning of new palettes.

For Koné, colour is rarely invented.

It is remembered.

Safe Place

Developing Safe Place meant living alongside every colour before making a decision.

Samples covered the wall beside her bed, becoming part of everyday life for weeks at a time.

"I need to live with them."

Only then could she understand how the colours changed with daylight, weather and the rhythm of daily life.

Rather than searching for colours that make an immediate impression, Koné looks for colours that continue to feel right over time.

Yvonne Koné's Colour Guide

Neutrals
Pearl, Linen, Crisp, Ashy, Putty and Pale create the quiet foundation of the collection. Soft, restrained and balanced, they allow architecture, materials and natural light to shape the atmosphere of a room.

Warm Tones
Golden, Wheat, Sun and Tuscany introduce warmth through muted yellow and sand tones. Rather than brightening a room dramatically, they create a gentle sense of comfort that unfolds naturally throughout the day.

Soft Pinks
Powder, Dusty Rose, Candy, Fire and Garden move through softened blush, clay and terracotta tones. They introduce warmth and personality without overwhelming a space, making them equally suited to larger surfaces and smaller moments of colour.

Blues & Greens
Soft Mint, Air, Dove, Sky, Water and Sea bring freshness while remaining understated. Their muted character allows them to respond quietly to changing daylight, creating interiors that feel calm, balanced and closely connected to nature.

A palette to live with

Although Safe Place consists of twenty-three colours, they all share the same quality. None of them ask to be the centre of attention. Every shade has been softened, allowing colours to sit naturally beside one another and evolve gently throughout the day.

Rather than encouraging bold statements, the palette invites slower decisions, quieter interiors and longer relationships with colour. As Koné describes it, Safe Place was never intended as a collection of favourite colours.

It was designed to become a place where people feel at home.