Like a pack of crayons, the primary colors are a playful trend being spotted everywhere this season. Accessible and truthful, the powerful primaries red, yellow and blue make up a collegiate palette with a back-to-school forever enthusiasm. This color pathway explores the urge towards self-expression at a time when social media creates an environment of oversaturation. With everyone clamoring to be heard and make an impact, color becomes a bold and unambiguous call to action in this trend. These colors have a youthful, energetic spirit, which cuts through all the noise to offer clarity.
A small wave of primary collections were seen in SS12-SS13 with brands such as Roksanda, Gucci, Lanvin and Stella McCartney designing garments in saturated, primary toned colors on pleated and graphic shapes. Crayola shades were mixed together on the runways, and the result was more of an haute color-block. Around this time, American Apparel was in its heyday of slinging boldly colored basics before Dov Charney was kicked out.
Bold primary colors started re-emerging in a bigger way in SS16 alongside the rise of 90’s nostalgia, sport pop, Memphis patterns, collegiate varsity style and nautical attire. Luxury designers with noticeable primary collections in SS16 included Craig Green, Celine and Gosha Rubchinskiy. Even Jeremy Scott included the primary color trend in his Moschino x Lego capsule collection. Cult-sensation LA brand, Unif, had a very well-executed social media campaign of cute mall-goth babes in schoolgirlish primary colored outfits against bold colored backgrounds. They also made a best-selling sweater appropriately called the “Crayola Sweater”. Up until 2017, the primary trend had a more “paintbox” type feel as it often included sporty greens, rich oranges and deep violets, similar to a classic RoseArt watercolor set from the 90’s.
Recently, the trend has simplified, eliminating all colors aside from red, yellow and blue. Pure primaries are playful yet clean, reflecting a back-to-basics mood, globally returning to foundations to re-examine the world. SS18 Fashion Week set the primary color trend into full swing as Raf Simons sent red, yellow and blue hyper-Americana cowboys down the runway for Calvin Klein. If you are color-blocking in 2018, keep your palette restrained to those three primary colors. With this limited collection, you can focus on the graphic combination of these hues.
As the trend has trickled down into the streets, old school Polo and Champion sweatshirts started popping up on boys in LA. @toopoor got her signature nails done in red yellow and blue. Lil Yachty collaborated with Nautica on a capsule collection. @internetgirl was spotted in a red crop top with blue eyeshadow and yellow nails. Lil Tracy wore an oversized red hockey jersey underneath a blue and yellow vintage sport coat to an interview at Mass Appeal. Ever popular skate brand Supreme’s signature red is easy to match with yellow and blue. @uglyworldwide is one of the key figures of the primary color movement as she has been serving back to basics looks over the past year both on the runway and off. The more saturated the shade, the better. A return to simplified colors is refreshing and brings a sense of cleanliness and purity to color.
Photo Credits:
1) Fendi AW17 Runway Show – Davide Maestri
2) Toopoor Nails – @toopoor
3) Calvin Klein SS18 Runway Show – iMaxTree
4) Uglyworldwide Puffy Coat – @uglyworldwide
5) Lil Tracy at Mass Appeal – Harrison Corwin