color

By Rieva Lesonsky

Are you a clothing retailer? Do you sell cosmetics? You should already be stocking up on fall fashions and palettes. Millennial pink is no longer the go-to color for fall, says fashion magazine Marie Claire. Instead, it says, look for merchandise in these four shades:

Milk chocolate, which is a medium-brown tone, will be the new neutral for fall. “A smoother, pink-ier take on one of the style world’s favorite hues,” is how the magazine describes warm mauve, is a universally flattering color.

And while Marie Claire says we’re bidding adieu to Millennial pink, we’re not giving up on the color altogether. Instead of the soft, faded pink, the new “hot” pink is just that—a bright poppy pink.

Pantone’s color-of-the-year for 2018 was ultra-violet. As that shade wraps up its year in the spotlight, Marie Claire says it will “transition into a richer deeper plum.”

If these colors sound very, um, colorful, apparently that’s part of a fashion trend as well While black has long had “timeless status as the go-to hue for the chic,” The Guardian says consumers are now embracing fashions in all colors of the rainbow. (The Guardian is a British newspaper, but remember, many fashion trends are born in London.) Global trend authority WGSN reports between April 2017 and April 2018, sales of black clothes fell 10%, while sales of yellow clothes were up 50%.

Theories abound explaining the switch to bright colors. One retail analyst told The Guardian it’s partly due to “millennial peacocking” presumably to stand out on Instagram. Fashion designer Susie Cave (The Vampire’s Wife) told The Guardian, “Color has a huge positive psychological impact—it is a shout of individuality—and I think women want some life and wonder and joy and wildness in their lives and color gives them that.”

In other words, in this crazy world, color makes everything look a little brighter.

Color stock photo by Rohappy/Shutterstock