PPB November 2021

The power of color, in the hands of brands and fashion designers, can also give way to another world of influence—consumer products. A scene depicting the importance of color plays out in the 2006 movie The Devil Wears Prada , when Andrea “Andy” Sachs, played by Anne Hathaway, sneers to herself after a co-worker describes two similar-looking turquoise belts as “so different,” and it prompts her boss, Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep, to sternly but truthfully explain how color comes to be used in mainstream products; otherwise known as the trickle-down effect. Referenced online as “the cerulean speech” or referred to as the “cerulean blue theory,” Priestly uses the blue cable-knit sweater Sachs is wearing as an example, noting that it’s not simply blue, but cerulean; a color that, she says, was used in runway collections of designers Yves Saint Laurent (cerulean gowns) and Oscar de la Renta (cerulean military jackets) a few years prior, in 2002. This fashion moment created the popularity of cerulean, which was then used by other designers and soon after appeared in retail stores, and finally made its way into Sachs’s closet. “That blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs,” Priestly tells her PANTONE 123C Gen Z Yellow Millennial Pink, Gen Z Yellow andThe Power Of Social Media Millennial Pink was originally Rose Quartz, Pantone’s 2016 Color of the Year, until it grew so popular amongst this generation that it was informally renamed by the public. This came at a time when Instagram was still growing, and thus many consumers began integrating a range of faint pink shades into their social media pages, posts, campaigns and businesses. Soon enough, Millennial Pink was showing up in marketing and consumer products everywhere, and it remains so today. Just the year before, popstar Rihanna made a color splash at the 2015 Met Gala when she wore an exquisite lemonade-yellow gown with a 16-foot-long train, which was handmade by Chinese courtier Guo Pei. This dress went viral on social media, which quickly led to other designers and brands integrating yellow into their collections, and the buttercup shade—Pantone’s Gen Z Yellow—also found its way into everyone’s closets, becoming the “it” color in 2018 for Gen Z. | NOVEMBER 2021 | 17 INNOVATE