A Case for Lupine

Lilac for all seasons

Yes it’s called lupine but to us it’s lilac. Sweet, summery lilac. It feels nostalgic with its pastel demeanour but it’s actually edgy and bold for the same reason.

And we have agreement! Pantone recently announced their picks for Fall 2020 fashion colour trends. These colours, identified in collaboration with fashion forecasting company Heuritech, identified five colour themes:

• pastel
• blue tones
• mint
• pink
• earth tones

Lupine (but lilac, okay?) is the highlighted shade for the pastel theme and we could not be more excited. It’s frothy  and delicate while also being colour forward. What a combination!

The Paris Review picked up on the lilac / lupine trend back in 2018 and Katy Kelleher wrote a glorious article on it. This quote alone:

[L]ilac is the redheaded stepchild of the purple family. It’s not bright like amethyst or chic like mauve. It’s the color of doomed hotels, Nantucket in the off-season, dentistry, Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes, and Victorian half mourning.

In a word – lupine / lilac is beguiling. It can sit easily with darker colours to provide cloudy mystery and a sense of fearful intrigue. It can also sit just as easily with lighter colours to provide a rocking punch of ATT-I-TUDE.

If you’re a fashion watcher, expect to see this color pop up even more in European-influenced fashion. If you’re not, you won’t miss out as it’s predicted to be all over your social media feeds (if it hasn’t already) this fall and beyond too.

For all you female bloggers, style influencers, pale pink is the safe pastel of choice, coupled with a bland neutral palette, for your personal brand. But if you really want to stand out rather than fit in, lilac / lupine may be the better brand colour game for you.

And we’d be ecstatic to partner with you if it is! We’d even constantly call it lupine just to up the mystery ratio for you.