A brand new period of using color lays in front of us, creating opportunity and inviting creativity. Now that the fashion system is out of fashion and it’s hype is outmoded, materials and colours will become the dominant vehicles of avant-gardism, the only way to discern allure and artistic vision in a collection. Therefore, the study of colours should become the priority of design studios, and will create possibilities for brands and designers to make their merchandise special and desirable, even if the shape is well known or common.

Due to the unsettling political climate in America, there is a new sense of vulnerability within the American consumer that can be uplifted by color. Creating passion amongst people in need of optimism. This group will find similar meanings between themselves and the color ways, ultimately creating a community of individuals.

Brands like Mansur Gavriel and Glossier are utilizing colors in a way that takes the product out of a retail mindset and into a movement. Known as the first successful brand to form after the recent economic downfall in America, Mansur Gavriel is molding the emerging middle market with their new approach to social media marketing.

Their use of mixed monochromatic colours and elevated store layout is always ready for Instagram, bringing consumers into a cohesive and blissful shopping experience. Built on the idea that “you give life to the products-products don’t breathe life into you”, Glossier moves away from the idea of over stimulating the consumer with excessive marking. The simple, monochromatic colours are manipulated in a way that seem to personally speak to each consumer in a way that only color can. They attract people, acting as a blank canvas, allowing the consumer to become the creative director.

In a time that is moved by the juxtaposition of commonality and individuality, monochromatic color ways act as a pendulum that changes hues as consumer’s ideas change. American consumers take comfort in groups of colours that work in delicate close harmonies while still buying single items to blend them together like nobody else, at times mixing their own monochromes into a multi-colored outfit, expressing personal taste and vision. Each item has a life of its own and will not bend for the other hues, resulting in a new way of power dressing with extravagant color encounters beyond the written rule of style. A revival of business in the making.

 
Molly Otteson, Abigail Bowen, Chloe Sos
 
Mansurgavriel

Glossier