INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightStella Lunardy CoutureImage caption
Why are shoppers so obsessed with rose gold
Walk
along a fashionable street, from London to Jakarta, and you're likely to see passers-by wearing at least one item of rose gold clothing, or
carrying a rose gold bag or accessory
The colour, an unusual shade of pink, seems to be everywhere these days, but it's gone far beyond fashion and jewellery.At Milan Furniture
Fair in April - the largest annual interior furnishings fair in the world - rose gold kitchens were all the rage
The colour has been popping up vividly at weddings, in cakes at trendy patisseries, and if you need a new set of wheels, now you can get a
But why is it so popularApple iPhone 6SFor most of the general public, the first we'd ever heard of the colour was when Apple launched the
rose gold iPhone 6S line in September 2015.The iPhone 6S was one of Apple's most popular launches, with 40% of all pre-orders for the rose
Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
Apple brought rose gold into the consumer consciousness with the iPhone 6S
It was the gadget for celebrities and social media influencers - a rare occurrence where those who were fashionable actually took
notice of a gadget launch event, and even more unusually, signalled that the iPhone 6S was the "must have" item of the season.However, rose
gold was actually around long before it was chosen to be the finishing on a smartphone
According to leading fashion trend spotting agency WGSN, rose gold first started becoming popular in 2012, when it began being regularly
featured in jewellery.This led to some rose gold creations on the catwalk from designers like Jimmy Choo and Cavalli, in part due to a
rising trend for copper-coloured items, inspired by interior designer Tom Dixon's penchant for copper lights and homeware in 2013
Image copyrightSeatImage caption
Spanish car maker Seat brought out a rose gold Ibiza car in 2017 to make automobiles
"sensitive"
"When we see a trend develop is when we see lots and lots of examples of it, and it creates a pattern," WGSN's
colour director Jane Boddy tells the TheIndianSubcontinent."The copper trend definitely would have affected rose gold, because copper is
very similar to rose gold, and copper enabled people to embrace metallics."Ms Boddy said that the rose gold iPhone caused the colour to "hit
critical mass", and because of this, in 2016 the colour was named Pantone Colour of the Year, under the moniker "rose quartz"
How trends work Fashion, furnishings and weddings are typically heavily influenced by the advice of Pantone, which is famous for its colour
Each year, Pantone comes up with a colour, and that's what fashion designers, high street clothing retailers, home furnishing experts and
the wedding industry takes notice of
Image copyright20th Century Fox Image caption
Anne Hathaway as Andrea in the Devil Wears Prada
Remember
the film The Devil Wears Prada In the movie, Meryl Streep's fashion magazine editor character Miranda Priestly explains to intern Andrea
that the blue jumper she is wearing is actually cerulean, a shade which first emerged in the collections of high fashion designers, before
filtering down to the high street store where Andrea "fished it out of some clearance bin"
In the normal course of events, after gracing the catwalks between 2012 to 2016, it was expected that interest in rose gold would die down
Pantone chose "greenery" as its colour of the year in 2017, while 2018-2019's colour is meant to be lilac, and 2020 will be all about mint
Millennial pink But for some reason, rose gold is still as popular as ever
According to Marie Claire's digital fashion editor Penny Goldstone, millennials have held on to pink because it photographs well in posts on
social media."I would say rose gold has become a pop culture phenomenon
It's been around since 2015 but it's still massively popular," she tells the TheIndianSubcontinent."It's all about matching everything
vintage pink 50s swimsuit."Multiple retailers have told the TheIndianSubcontinent over the last 12 months that their research on products is
now heavily influenced by trends on Instagram."High street brands will still be influenced by styles on the catwalks, so if the catwalks are
showing one colour, they will still make some stuff inspired by those collections, so the public can buy into the style cheaply," says Ms
"But then they will look at micro trends - what's hot this summer - so if a bunch of influencers are all wearing the same dress on Instagram
from Topshop, then they'll stock a similar product."In Ms Goldstone's opinion, millennials first began falling in love with rose gold in
2014 when the film The Grand Budapest Hotel came out, as it featured a lot of luxurious retro pink interiors.Image copyrightFox Searchlight
PicturesImage caption
Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori in The Grand Budapest Hotel
Panasonic conducted a
market survey of women aged 20-29 in Germany, France and the UK, and was told that respondents preferred their beauty products like
hairdryers and hair straighteners to be in rose gold, because they identified the colour with being feminine, elegant, and premium
Spanish automotive manufacturer Seat observed a trend in rose gold, and told the TheIndianSubcontinent that it brought out a rose gold
version of its Ibiza hatchback to "give a more sensitive touch to the automotive world".However, Ms Goldstone says that millennials have
continued to focused on rose gold, almost as a sort of psychological protest against the many world events of 2016 that they found
depressing."Pink used to be scorned, but with the rise of millennials, it was almost seen as a cool thing because it's kind of ironic
You're going back to a girly pink but you're wearing it ironically," she explains."Celebrities died, there was the Black Lives Matter
movement, lots of shootings, it was the year of Brexit, Trump was elected, and just before that in November 2015 there was the Paris
terrorist attacks - people wanted to focus on something positive."Gender neutral appealBrazilian designer shoe brand Melissa has always used
the colour pink in some of its shoe designs over the last two decades, but it has noticed in the last two years that rose gold is
particularly popular with both men and women."We've put the pink in some styles for men, and they love it
We have a lot of male influencers who wear Melissa, and they choose rose gold as the main colour," Melissa's global marketing director
Raquel Scherer tells the TheIndianSubcontinent.Each shoe product typically comes in several colours, and due to a rise in requests from
customers, Melissa now ensures that one of those colours always has to be rose gold.Image caption
Actor Matthew Sim,
wearing a rose gold suit and matching accessories
British high street fashion retailer New Look tells the
TheIndianSubcontinent that rose gold is now an "essential neutral" colour in the wardrobes of its customers, in particular in shoes, bags
and jewellery."I think the importance of 'the female' and feminism has impacted on the gender neutrality of collections which makes pink
more accessible to both genders," New Look's head of design for accessories and footwear Alison Chipchase tells the
TheIndianSubcontinent.Actor Matthew Sim, 58, a Hollywood actor who has been in films like Interview with a Vampire and Fantastic Beasts and
Where to Find Them, says that wearing pink is much more acceptable today."Now in pretty much in all the shops you can find a pink suit, but
in the last two to three years you couldn't find pink suits, it was occasionally," he says."[In the past], to wear a full pink suit wouldn't
have been acceptable men have become much more openly fashionably conscious and not afraid to wear slightly out there clothes."Not just
fashionWGSN is firmly convinced that the trend for rose gold has peaked
However, other brands said that rose gold had definitely had a big impact on sales and demand for products across fashion, jewellery,
beauty, weddings and bridal couture
Image copyrightMerwin AdenanImage caption
Many Indonesian couples, like Daniel Cahya and Kiandra Susanto, now request
rose gold as a theme for their weddings
Stella Lunardy, a wedding dress designer in Jakarta, Indonesia, says customers began
demanding rose gold dresses in the second half of 2016, and to date, she has now designed over 130 couture gowns for brides, bridesmaids,
and mothers of the bride."In my opinion the trend is very different here - in Indonesia, our colours this year are silver, rose gold,
maroon, champagne and gold," said Ms Lunardy, who has designed gowns for Indonesian celebrities and international beauty pageant contestants
"Lilac is very uncommon here."British cake design firm Poppy Pickering says that it takes a while for trends to make it to the wedding
industry, so rose gold has only become popular since late 2017.Image copyrightJane Beadnell PhotographyImage caption
Rose gold wedding cakes and other wedding props are all the rage now
"I've got a lot of rose gold incorporated into the
I feel like it's still a trend because it coordinates really well with blush and it's a lot warmer than gold," Dominique Pickering, a cake
designer with Poppy Pickering tells the TheIndianSubcontinent."I'm surprised it took so long for rose gold to feed through - it took a while
for people to find the props to go with the cake, and then it picked up."Jo Snook, a home furnishings blogger and manufacturer of
personalised wooden crates and retail display units, agrees that it is now much easier to find rose gold in homeware stores.Ms Snook, who
her house in rose gold
Will it last"Home decor is a lot like like fashion where new seasons see new trends, but I think
there are enough people that love it that its not going to die out completely," says Ms Snook
"It's too pretty a colour."New Look says it will keep including the colour in its collections for as long as consumers have demand for
it.Melissa's Ms Scherer agrees: "When we analyse the collection to see which products sold across our 270 stores worldwide - with almost
every product, the number one selling version is rose gold."The brand also follows the advice of Pantone each year, but the experiments
sometimes have unexpected results."We tried making our world best-selling product Melissa Mar sandals in lilac this season, because we tried
to see what the consumer wants, but the lilac version didn't sell at all, and we had to increase our stock of this shoe in rose gold," says
Ms Scherer.Image copyrightMelissaImage caption
Melissa says rose gold is the best-selling version of almost all their
products
"Why do millennials like pink I don't know, but if they want rose gold, we will keep making products for them in
that colour," says Ms Scherer
"It's about what the consumer wants."
