Norah Gaughan

I like to keep my design moving forward, and I'm constantly searching magazines, catalogs, and the Internet for détails to add to my design vocabulary. Almost any visual medium is fair game. While planning this book, I found myself newly attuned to related shapes in the world around me. I saw hexagons seemingly everywhere, from columns of basalt on a beach in Iceland to a wasp nest attached to my own front porch. I found them in floor tiles, decorative Windows from India, and textiles as well.

While hexagons fit together perfectly in a flat plane, their six-sided geometry allows them to fit together myriad other ways. Depending upon which edges you choose to join, they can form straight lines, curves and waves. In this coat, the hexagons form their signature flat pattern in the background, then are joined end to end, like a string of pearls, to trim the neckline and create a long, flattering visual line.