Journal Entry #002 - Departures '26.
Dan Chater
There is a particular feeling that comes with getting away.
The moment routine gives way to that longing to be elsewhere. Long days, unfamiliar places, salt on your skin and warm summer evenings with the scent of al fresco cuisine lingering through the air.
For a little while at least, there is nowhere else you need to be.
Departures began with that feeling.
Not with a particular garment or graphic, but with an attempt to capture what summer travel feels like — the anticipation of leaving, the places we pass through and the memories that somehow stay with us long after we return home.
For Ayr Space, escapism has always been part of the idea. Departures takes that thought a little further.
A SENSE OF PLACE
Living and working beside the coast inevitably finds its way into what we make.
The landscape around St. Ives changes constantly. Grey rock against pale blue water. Washed-out skies. Sea greens. Warm stone. Then, when the light changes, flashes of peach, cream and faded silhouettes appear across everything.
Rather than approaching Departures with a conventional summer palette, we started there.
Charcoal and grey came from the cliffs and rocks surrounding the town. Faded blues and soft greens from the point where the Atlantic disappears into the sky. Peach and natural raw brought in the warmth — sun, sand and the last light of long summer evenings.
The result is deliberately muted.
Colours that feel as though they have already spent a summer outside.
Departures Colour Palette 2026
MADE FOR THE WHOLE DAY
Summer isn’t always lightweight.
Especially here by the coast.
A hot afternoon beside the water can quickly become a cold evening on the coast, so the collection was built around layers rather than a single idea of what summer clothing should be.
Lightweight pieces sit alongside substantial 240gsm T-shirts, long sleeves, sweatshirts and heavyweight 400gsm hoodies. Swim shorts, caps, sliders and bags extend the collection beyond clothing into the things you actually take with you.
Some pieces are made for the heat of the day – Others are there for when the sun goes down.
Together, they form a wardrobe designed around moving through summer rather than simply dressing for it.
Departures – Summer ‘26
POSTCARDS, AIRMAIL AND PLACES ELSEWHERE
The artwork throughout Departures follows the same idea.
Old postcards. Airmail stamps. Travel documents. Polaroids. Addresses. Things collected, sent home or kept because they remind us of somewhere we once were.
Rather than referencing travel literally, these details became fragments of an imagined journey.
Par Avion takes its cues from vintage international airmail. Memento looks at the photographs we bring home with us. 40 Fore Street turns our own shop and studio into a destination — a small marker of where Ayr Space currently exists in the world.
‘Memento.’
Elsewhere, familiar Ayr Space graphics and typography appear across quieter essentials, connecting the collection back to the wider identity of the brand.
Different pieces, but all belonging to the same place.
Or perhaps the same journey.
‘Escapism.’
DEPARTURES
It took longer to get here than we intended.
Departures was supposed to arrive earlier in the summer, but running our first season from the shop on Fore Street while designing, printing and producing a collection alongside it meant things moved more slowly than planned.
This collection became something we kept returning to — changing colours, removing ideas, refining graphics and trying to make sure every piece belonged.
What remains is a considered mix of seasonal staples built around one simple idea:
The feeling of getting away.
Hot summer days. Coastal air. Heavy layers after sunset. Photographs taken without much thought that become important years later. The places we leave behind and the pieces of them we carry home.
A collection about leaving it all behind, if only for a while.
DEPARTURES — SUMMER 2026
Built for Escapism.