As far as colours go, millennial pink is indisputably the most typifying colour of 2017. The shade came to the fore somewhere in Spring 2016 and quickly became ubiquitous in enterprises that go far and beyond fashion.
However, pink might soon get ousted by a new, more fever-pitched colour: Yellow!
For the next season, pop culture is looking towards deeper pigments of yellow to rule over everything, from architecture and food to fashion and furnishing.
Coined first as ‘Gen Z Yellow’ by Haley Nahman of Man Repeller, this hue is the younger generation’s answer to millennial pink.
The colour also appeared gallantly on Pantone’s Spring 2018 forecast with the industrial name Meadowlark Yellow. Several fashion designers including Jacquemus, Christopher Kane, Elie Saab, Carolina Herrera, Hellessey and others presented at least one all-yellow outfit in their Spring/Summer 2018 collection.
Calvin Klein under Raf Simons’ leadership simulated the sanguinity of yellow in not just their latest collection but also to revamp retail communication and branding, introducing a new era for the all-American brand.
To trace modern yellow’s roots, a key place to look at could be the youth art movement called ‘art hoe collective’, started by 15-16 years old artists in 2015, which looks at conventional art from coloured lenses and uses yellow as a form of personal aesthetic. The movement is an assemblage of everything Gen-Z stands for, a reclamation of creativity and personal freedom in a more inclusive format of all race, colour or gender.
The next generation of tastemakers, Gen-Z will be the biggest consumers soon, so it comes as a little surprise that the new colour trends are coming from the influencers of this cohort.
RnB musician Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade took the film and music world by a storm in 2016 and one of the most popular stills from the album shows the artist wearing a Roberto Cavalli Fall/Winter ’16 yellow tiered gown.
The yellow colour’s growth is (almost) entirely social-media driven at this point. It was also worn in abundance by young celebrity influencers like Millie Bobby Brown of Stranger Things fame and 21-year-old Tavi Gavinson of the blog Style Rookie, on the red carpet throughout the year.
Yellow is a hyper-visible colour, something the Gen-Z does not shy away from, and at the same time, it offers a cheery respite from all the politics and upheaval.
It is not about breaking boundaries in the way that pink was about breaking the stigma around femininity but talks more of acceptance, a ‘come as you may’ attitude.
However, unlike pink, yellow is not a colour that is always easy on the eye, it is action-oriented and can feel sickening if overdone but is also extremely gender non-conforming.
Yellow has no pre-attached gender connotations which means that it can be executed well seamlessly across different product categories. It can be a great fashion forward tone for the next season, if approached with some caution and pre-tested with the right marketing directions.