A model dressed in Christian Lacroix Couture Spring/Summer 2009 collection.
As the founder and chief executive of Joie de Vivre hotels, Chip Conley is known for quirky, cutting-edge décors. But some of his investors balked when he planned a hotel interior and a financial-district restaurant that featured hot pink.
So he and his designers picked a new name for the color in their scheme: "mangenta."
No longer relegated to the garish masses, the saturated pink shades known as fuchsia and magenta are suddenly haute. They are cropping up in all sorts of unexpected places, including building exteriors, sofas, shoes and iPhones. British designer Clive Christian, who accepts only clients who know better than to ask the cost of their "couture" kitchens, has created a concept design for the "Alpha Kitchen" that's aglow with hot pink LED lighting.
Fuchsia is a leading color for fall in both womenswear and menswear. Hot pink ties drip from the racks of the upscale new Neapolitan Men store in Winnetka, Ill. Saks Fifth Avenue has placed fall orders for hot pink clothes from brands including the inexpensive BCBG Max Azria and the higher-end Michael Kors, who went so far as to show a full-length fur coat in the color for fall.
"I have to tell you," says Colleen Sherin, Saks's women's fashion director, "our best sell-throughs are not coming from black. They're coming from bold, vibrant colors and patterns."
For once, this demand is coming from the fashion elite in New York, the city that perfected head-to-toe black. Store buyers in the southern U.S. have been begging for more color for years.
"This is a somewhat unusual color trend," says Dean White, executive vice president of merchandising at Paul Fredrick, where sales of hot pink ties have doubled to 6% of sales from 3% in the past year. "In the '80s, sales in pink neckwear were very good, but that was in a more traditional shade of light pink."
The fuchsia phenomenon might not age really well. Yet that's precisely the point -- fuchsia is so very here today because tomorrow is so scary to think about. The color of hothouse flowers and glorious summer landscapes speaks to our bruised psyches. Brown is bleak. Fuchsia is anything but.
Says Anamaria Wilson, fashion news and features director of Harper's Bazaar magazine, which has a spread of fuchsia fashion on its pages this month. "I don't mean to sound obvious, but there's a whole optimism thing going on here."
When the financial crisis hit last fall, just as clothing designers were selling their fall ready-to-wear collections to stores, the runways were full of black, gray and brown, with swatches of blue. The style world's creative types set to work immediately to come up with a new style equation that would persuade consumers to whip out their credit cards. Six months later -- wham! The colors -- zany, cartoonish hues that also include neon orange and yellow -- are bold enough to induce an adrenalin rush.
It was hard to miss the appearance of both Michelle Obama and White House Social Secretary Desirée Rogers in bright fuchsia dresses at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner several weeks ago. They are always right on trend, thanks to their cavalcade of fashion's leading advisers, from Vogue editor Anna Wintour to designers like Narciso Rodriguez.
And from a design-industry perspective, what better choice than a shade that will shake things up now -- and require a new coat of paint when we can no longer bear to look at it?
he cover of New York magazine's design issue this month shows a gleeful model tossing a can of fuchsia paint across the white cover. The concept suggests devil-may-care fun.
"Pink represents a certain playfulness and confidence, particularly in men," says Simon Maloney, head of buying and production for shirtmaker Thomas Pink, where pink is selling well and will be marketed as a key color for fall.
Since pink carries a lot of psychological baggage, I consulted with Sarah Whittaker, an image consultant known professionally as the "wardrobe shrink," about what the color says when worn. Fuchsia, she says, "can be quite acidic, and so the wearer can appear arrogant or like they are flaunting themselves," she said. Redder tones such as magenta "can be more respectful," she added, noting that such colors work well on people with strong coloring, such as dark eyes and hair.
I disappear in bright colors, but fuchsia has tiptoed into my home. First, some pillow covers called out to me at Ikea -- an inexpensive way to enliven my kitchen benches. I've purchased a hot pink scarf that makes people smile, I hope out of good cheer.
Last week, my 10-year-old son Harper returned from the orthodontist with fuchsia-colored braces. I concede that I worried about the reaction at school the next day, but I needn't have. The other boys like them -- without any coaching about mangenta.