Who would have thought that one of the best-selling colours
for men last summer was dusy pink? Well, it was. It was such
a success that it looks as if it will top the colour charts again
this summer, since all the designers have hit on the hue once
more. here are shades of dusy, neon, pastel and flesh pink on
everything, everywhere. Come rain or shine, it seems we’ll all
be looking exceedingly pink and pery. Well, perhaps not pery.
However delectable the colour may be, it can be a tricy one
to wear; especially when nearer the dusy end of the spectrum.
I’m wearing a pale pink sweatshirt as I write this column.
I’m a method writer in case you didn’t know. I don’t write this
page, I live it. he sweatshirt is coton jersey, a great fit, and is
by Holiday Boileau, the brand owned by the editor of French
Vog ue’s husband. So far, so good. here are, however, two small
downsides. One is the fact it says “Holiday” across the front.
Nothing wrong with a cheering slogan at all, except that I’m
siting at my desk, in an oice of around 800 people, on the
top floor of Westfield London shopping centre in a smog-
filled corner of Shepherd’s Bush. You couldn’t really get less
“Holiday” than that (even if you’re siting on the terrace of
the new John Lewis café with a botle of juice and a straw).
Clearly, my sweatshirt is telling a damned lie. Second problem
is that the dusy pink colour efortlessly matches the pale,
sun-deprived flesh tones of my face; it’s tricy to tell where my
neck stops and my clothing starts. I look like a giant finger with
a face drawn on it. Does anyone remember the old TV show
Fingerbobs? here’s a reason why there was only one series.
It’s no surprise men have wholeheartedly embraced the colour,
of course. First of all, we’ve been fearless about bold colours and
paterns for yonks now. Grrrr! we say when someone throws
a pastel in our direction today. Pop into the changing rooms
downstairs in the Gucci store on Bond Street and it’s heaving
with firefighters and farmers from the Home Counties salivating
over bright pink sweatshirts with pictures of teddy bears on the
front, or knitwear emblazoned with pictures of Snow White.
here’s a particular shade of pink — the aforementioned fleshy
one — that has become so fashionable it’s even been given its
own name: millennial pink.
And it’s not just covering clothes, but entire restaurants and
McMansions, too. he dining room in London’s popular Sketch
restaurant in Mayfair, designed by the artist David Shrigley, is
plastered in pink walls and banquetes, and newspaper propery
pages recently reported that multi-million pound mansions
at the top end of the market strugling to sell were suddenly
finding buyers if they replaced their neutral Kelly Hoppen-syle
colour paletes with a lick of millennial (or million-ial) pink paint.
Ask the experts why and, predictably, they’ll bring up the
subject of gender politics, Brexit, Trump and the Pink Pound
(I made that up), the realiy is more likely that it shows upIn the pink > Flamingo,
bubblegum, rosé — whatever
your preferred shade, one
colour will dominate summer
- By Jeremy Langmead
well on Instagram. And, unless like
me you’re wearing your dusy pink
in that bucolic-sounding triangle of
concrete between Shepherd’s Bush,
Wood Lane and White Ciy, pink
is a colour that conjures up sun-
drenched holidays in the Balearics:
think early-morning beaches of San
Antonio litered with flesh-coloured
condoms; or the rain-spatered bins
at the end of Cheltenham Ladies Day
overflowing with plastic beakers
of blush Prosecco; and that happy
interim colour between pink and
pale brown that you spot halfway
down the doner kebab rotisserie and
pray to God won’t end up in your
takeaway carton.
I suppose the world is so bleak
at the moment, the tastemakers
have decided we all need a lick of
millennial paint to cheer us up. It will
help if we look at everything through
rose-tinted spectacles, or through the
botom of a glass of rosé, or while
wearing a pale pink sweatshirt that
says “Holiday” across the front.Hot pink (from top): variations of the shade on the
catwalk in collections by Gucci, Oliver Spencer
and Giorgio Armani; pink pioneer David ‘he Hof’
Hasselhof in TV’s Knight Rider (1982–’86)51
Gety
Style