Did Hillary Clinton Help Make Ultra Violet Pantone’s Color of the Year
PURPLE REIGN: Has Hillary Clinton helped make ultra violet the Pantone Color of the Year 2018?
It is safe to say that no other pubic figure indirectly championed the unmistakable shade than the former presidential candidate in the past year or so. Conceding defeat to Donald Trump in November, Clinton wore a Ralph Lauren Collection gray pantsuit with purple accents and a purple crewneck blouse at the New Yorker Hotel. For added effect, her husband Bill stood in the wings wearing a tie in the same hue. The prom queen and prom king combo delivered a message of unity, according to trend forecaster Li Edelkoort.
At a time when many diehard Democrats and Republicans were not seeing eye-to-eye, Clinton chose purple, which is a combination of blue and red. “She symbolized the unity of these two extremes, which I think was very wise and beautiful and symbolic,” said Edelkoort, adding that Tim Kaine’s wife Anne Holton wore the color, too, “so they really decided on it.”
Nearly 20 months after the musician Prince’s death, fashion is having a purple moment. Varying shades of purple appeared on spring or fall runways from such designers as Christopher Kane, Carolina Herrera, Ann Demeulemeester, Alberta Ferretti, Calvin Klein, Issey Miyake, Pamella Roland and J Koo Seoul. Gucci’s Alessandro Michele bathed his fall runway in ultra violet-colored light at one point.
Even more inventive uses of this shade, can be found in next year’s “Avengers: Infinity War” where “Thanos” appears to be faintly purple and one of his Infinity Stone’s is undeniably violet. That “spiritual, cosmic” hue may be fitting considering Pantone 18-3838 is meant “to push the boundaries of what inspires us to look upward and outward to the future.” Other unexpected takes include this week’s Purple Light Up, Fullsteam Brewery’s anti-gerrymandering Purple State beer, the new start-up Purple’s patented compression mattresses and Whitesnake’s upcoming album “The Purple Tour (Live).” Survivalists might associate purple as the color code for the highest security threat. But fashion enthusiasts take a considerably lighter approach as proven by some of Heidi Klum’s red carpet choices and the Ultra Violet Gucci Princetown velvet slippers Sofia Richie wore Wednesday.
Related stories
Art Basel Miami Beach: Gucci Goes to the Bath Club
Alexa Fairchild Collection Aims to Be Seasonless and Multigenerational
Plenty of Hot-Button Topics at ICSC N.Y.
Get more from WWD: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter
