Future historians may call this the question of our time. In this age of millennial pink, what do you wear if you are not a millennial? Evidence is stacking up in favour of a rich, arterial colour we’ll call revolutionary red. We see it on TV’s The Handmaid’s Tale, where Margaret Atwood’s maids’ vestments indicate fertility, menstrual blood and wanton sexuality. It’s in the red statement jackets seemingly worn by all female politicians, to the point of it becoming a sartorial franchise. And it’s all over fashion and the catwalks of Iceberg, Kate Spade and Max Mara and in the revival of the Baywatch-inspired swimsuit. Revolutionary red is everywhere.
First, some background. Millennial pink, a sort of dusty salmon, was born from the dialogue around gender: where once pink indicated femininity, the shade came to symbolise a post-binary, inclusive world – the colour rebranded as a genderless tone, and worn by men. To wit: the cover of spring’s Fantastic Man – Steve McQueen shot in front of a millennial pink backdrop. So when Gigi Hadid, millennial poster girl, wore head-to-toe millennial pink last week, something had to give: #millennialism arguably peaked.
Revolutionary red’s timing is also on point thanks to the TV adaptation of Atwood’s novel, whose themes of authoritarian patriarchy bear a dark comparison to Trump’s America. While the characters are trapped in nightmarish subservience, the show – and the colour red – are symbolically fighting back, just as 2017 has become the age of talking back. Millennial pink may be the colour of gender politics, but red boasts a greater association with protest.
“It’s impossible to get away from red’s radical roots and the way it became part of the anti-establishment design canon,” says Patrick Burgoyne, editor of Creative Review. It became the colour of “cool”, just like the Che Guevara posters that once lined student walls. “Its original meaning has been subverted and co-opted.” Simply by wearing or using red, you can associate yourself with a movement without committing to it.
Red has always been used in fashion and branding, of course. It’s cheaper to print with fewer colours and an arresting shade of red gets the most bang for your buck. If you are a politician, and you want to get noticed when you are, say, meeting Donald Trump for the first time as leader, then wearing a red jacket (as Theresa May did in January) will do the trick. Ditto Hillary Clinton, whose fight for the presidency was carried out with the aid of her Nina McLemore red jacket. See also Ruth Davidson, Diane Abbott and Nicola Sturgeon, who regularly choose screen-friendly red jackets in public. For female politicians, red transcends political ideologies. It is about being a woman in a man’s world.
For the rest of us, the change is welcome. Revolutionary red is a chance to wear a colour that means something other than “I’m young”. In short, kids, it’s red or dead.
