Who would have thought that associating the word monochrome with the concept of freedom was possible?
The monochrome, and its sidekick, the total look, imply a univocal use. Everyone is on the same page, no head sticking out! An imposed bias “from above” – to understand by the pythias of fashion, the great designers and style offices.
In the 50’s and 60’s, monochrome, very fashionable especially in the USA, was the height of bourgeois convention. At that time, fashion was seen as the decoration of the house, it was the business of the assemblers!
Bag, shoe, suit, hat… and even lipstick and eye shadow, had to be in unison… Hence the formulas that seem to have been invented to restrict the choice of color: “It doesn’t go with anything“, and its opposite, “it goes with everything”…
After that, the diktats kicked in. A Deus ex machina seemed to ensure that a different and unique color was declared the “star“ of the season. If you were not able to anticipate its arrival, and even use it, you were completely out, excluded from the realm of the initiated.
Welcome in the world of non-color and non-choice
Then it was the turn of the non-color and thus the non-choice – out of the black no survival.
We just allowed ourselves a few slips in black and white, in neo-Japanese navy, or in BC-BG camel.
The absolute seduction, the essential glamour, consisted in putting a touch of bright red on her lips, or on the soles of her stilettos. Just to escape a little from this long period of mourning of the color.
The history of the use of colors in fashion did not seem to lead us to the taking of the Bastille of the passionarias of the fashion that we live in this moment.
Color is popping up everywhere
For there, all of a sudden, color is popping up everywhere. It floods clothes, accessories, make-up – which are not afraid to propose colors that were previously reserved for other uses – and even food and objects for the home.
It’s like having a big box of color tubes to use in the most personal way possible. The use of color becomes a creative game just for you. A delight to spread! To encourage us, makeup brands suggest we invent our own palette and digitize it. The accessory collections follow our desires and make us choose the color of the pockets and straps of the bags, and soles and uppers of the shoes.
The victorious return of monochrome
In this new approach to color, we see the victorious return of monochrome. Palettes of color at our disposal, we arrange, we classify, we organize by color. Concept stores are appearing based entirely on monochromy, such as “Club Couleur” which chooses basic and functional clothing and objects of use, to immerse them in the same color bath. Vintage stores, or stores focused on second hand, enhance the clothes by a monochrome staging, worthy of a painting gallery. And we, addicts to the color, we take advantage of it to associate our purple sweater of 2 years ago, that we didn’t want anymore, to the purple sneakers, found on “Vinted”, that made us fall in love.
Thanks to the monochrome, mediator of color, we have reappropriated the color. It has been democratized, desacralized.
Want to learn more about beauty trends? Visit our event, MakeUp Paris, on June 16 and 17, 2022.
Coloprescription
TO APPROACH THE EXPERIENCE OF COLOUR IN ITS SENSORY DIMENSION, 100% PHYSICAL
Prescribing colour to show that it feels good!
Designed by Sabine Le Chatelier and Claude Vuillermet, two renowned experts. This new inspiration tool is entirely designed to boost creativity. It’s a colour choice that doesn’t follow any recipe, any dictate, any seasonality. The tool takes the form of a singular, luxurious and enigmatic box, different each time. Its content is based on the choice of a single colour in four precise shades
Colorprescription is aimed at creative people looking for unconventional sources of inspiration in all fields where colour is preponderant – cosmetics, automotive, textile, leather, fashion, packaging, communication, furnishing, decoration, architecture… and more.
