2017 was the year of grassy and revitalising green, but, according to the Pantone Color Institute®, a consulting service within Pantone that forecasts global color trends, the shade of the year in 2018 will be a super vibrant nuance - Pantone 18-3838 Ultra Violet - as announced at the beginning of December.
According to the official press release, this unique purple shade was chosen since it "communicates originality, ingenuity, and visionary thinking that points us toward the future".
The color is therefore linked to one of the trends we have analysed in the last two posts - Space Age Fashion. There are indeed multiple images all over the Internet linked with space discoveries, the mysteries of the cosmos and the possibilities of exploring other worlds and planets, tinged in an alluring shade of violet.
For example, the color is evoked in the images taken from the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope aboard NASA's Swift spacecraft showing the galaxy known as M31 in the constellation Andromeda (located more than 220,000 light-years across and lying 2.5 million light-years away), bathed in a mesmerising violet light.
Though projected towards the future this shade that combines red and blue (but it is more blue-based) also looks back at the past: in the UK, purple was (with green and white) one of the colours of the Women's Social and Political Union.
Art-wise it was the favourite shade of many artists and was often employed by (among the others) Pre-Raphaelite painter Arthur Hughes, Gustav Klimt, Wassily Kandinsky, Keith Haring and Andy Warhol.
The shade has also got an architectural twist since Guggenheim architect Frank Lloyd Wright's favorite color was purple, and it is linked to highly creaive minds such as late icons Prince, David Bowie, and Jimi Hendrix who represent counterculture, unconventionality, and artistic brilliance.
Pantone actually anticipated this connection with Prince in August 2017 when the institute dedicated him a custom shade of purple called "Love Symbol #2", inspired by Prince's custom-made purple Yamaha piano.
The nuance is also supposed to evoke modern dichotomies such as the highly chaotic and technological times we are living in Vs slower rhythms and mindfulness practices (think about amethyst crystals...), something evoked by the spiritual quality of this shade.
In September 2017 Ultra Violet was already among the a group of "genderless" (designed to appear in men and women's wear designs) shades (together with Little Boy Blue 16-4132, Chili Oil 18-1440, Blooming Dahlia 15-1520, Pink Lavender 14-3207, Arcadia 16-5533, Emperador 18-1028, Almost Mauve 12- 2103, Spring Crocus 17-3020, Lime Punch 13-0550, Sailor Blue 19-4034, Harbor Mist 14-4202, Warm Sand 15-1214 and Coconut Milk 11-0608) that the Pantone Institute decreed among the 12 colors that were going to rule the S/S 18 collections.
In a way the Pantone Institute was right: Ultra Violet actually appeared on quite a few runways such as Kenzo's and abounded in Alessandro Michele's vision for Gucci's S/S 18 collection.
Before that, though, it was anticipated (maybe to symbolise a union of opposed colours - blue and red - and identities as well - Republicans and Democrats) by Hillary Clinton who wore a dark pantsuit with purple lapels and a purple blouse when she admitted defeat to Donald Trump last November (husband Bill was wearing for the occasion a tie in the same shade).
Pantone hopes the shade will not reflect what is going on in our world at the moment, but will provide us with an optimistic message and an uplifting vision of the future. Sounds like we should definitely wish each other a very Ultra Violet year.
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