We recently received an inquiry from a prospective in Australia looking for a gray tallit for her fiance. She happens to be a writer, so her request was a bit more descriptive:
Can I ask your advice?
I am looking for a wool tallit - he's not religious, but very traditional.
I'm looking in the colours of black, charcoal and silver, and would like the prayer embroidered on the atara.
Could you please suggest some tallitot that he may like?
This is actually not a very complicated request. We have over a half-dozen different tallit options in gray, gray and silver, black and gray and other gray combinations. And all of them have the Tzitzit Blessing embroidered on the atara.
To begin with, there is a Tashbetz design with gray and silver and another with gray, black and silver. The Tashbetz features a very luxurious nonslip fabric.
There's also a Maalot tallit with gray bands, accented with gold and burgundy.
And finally, in the handmade and handwoven categories, we have the Galilee Gray Classic and the Gabrieli Black & Gray, Gabrieli Storm Clouds or Joseph's Coat in Gray. The Gabrieli differs from all of the above in that the base color is not white.
I also tossed in the Gvanim. Although it's actually blue, the blue is muted and it features a lot of gray striping as well.
A gray tallit also works well with techelet tzitzit, if the person the tallit is intended for wants to go with techelet.
The problem is that many of the above tallit options are not always available in all sizes, so I told the kallah that before placing an order she might want to contact me to confirm availability.