The existence of color in spring fashion is certainly not a novel idea. As the ice thaws, the daylight hours stretch longer, and the winter coats get delegated to the back of the closet, it is only natural for fashion to reflect our society’s optimism after a long, gray winter. But this spring there seems to be an abundance of vibrant, punchy colors in fashion and influences of the color chart in the art world.

It wasn’t a necessity to be sitting ring side in the tents at Bryant Park last September to see the existence of color – and lots of it – currently in the Spring 2008 collections. On the runway, the ready-to-wear and couture collections of most designers were influenced by color.

The heavy hitters all worked with a plethora of color. John Galliano for Christian Dior showed a couture collection in Paris that was bursting with it. His models wore bright yellows and burnished gold, lime green, and plenty of deep jewel tones such as amethyst and ruby. In fact, in the perpetual interplay between art and fashion, Galliano intended for this exposition of clothing to be a discourse on Symbolist painters. In the last runway showing of his illustrious career, Valentino opened with muted pastels and citrus colors. He cleansed the palate with several white separates before presenting a bouquet of floral prints at first subtle and then loud in oranges and bright pinks. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana presented a spring collection full of bohemian prints and ruffled chiffons. A hippie chic vibe and floral prints dominated their Milan presentation. The show opened with a smattering of blue, often by way of tailored shirts and denim. Several of the garments were devoted to nude chiffon with fuchsia or yellow ruffles. The show was rounded out by dresses cascading with mismatched flower and patchwork prints.

Rei Kawakubo, always avant-garde, displayed an entire spectrum of colors at Comme des Garçons. Fuchsia, yellow, burnt orange, hunter green, lavender, bright blue, brown and navy appeared below models whose faces were painted like geishas gone mad. Balenciaga, with Nicolas Ghesquière at the helm, was full of colorful graphic prints, metallic shine and rich colors. The prints were overwhelmingly of the flower variety and Ghesquière himself remarked that he had done prints before but “never went to the flowers”. Carolina Herrera was influenced not by flowers but by art- specifically by the interior illustrator Jeremiah Goodman’s watercolors.

Even designers who weren’t entirely infatuated with the rainbow included a modicum of color in their collections. Although Karl Lagerfeld showed mostly grey, silver, and white in his couture collection for Chanel, he sent some muted pink down the catwalk. The pieces that opened his ready-to-wear collection were imbued with true Americana: evidenced by red and white stripes, navy star prints and denim that contrasted with the black and white ensembles that made up the remainder of the show. Yellow popped up in an otherwise somber Akris collection from Albert Kriemler. At the perpetually minimalistic Helmut Lang line, neutral sportswear was off set by turquoise cocktail dresses and a trench coat.

Color even appeared in menswear. One piece of evidence was a multi-colored sweater at Chanel. Elsewhere, brave male models at 3.1 Phillip Lim sported a red belt and criss-crossed red leather sandals. Others were outfitted in navy shirts and shorts as well as a canary yellow fitted jacket and even tomato red jackets and pants.

An interest in fashion is not necessary to discern color’s current influence in the retail industry. One only needs to look into any retailer’s window to see the bright colors of the spring assortments. Hot fuchsias, lush reds, plenty of yellows, deep turquoises and almost every other selection from the color wheel can be found dominating spring clothes. Color appears on garments and accessories covering every facet of the wardrobe. Cottons and silks are dyed in rich tones and accessories are punched up even more by the shine from their patent leathers.

New York Magazine organized their spring fashion issue around the basic idea of color, calling this spring the Technicolor season. One article included in the February 25th issue titled One is the Loveliest Color by Joanna Goddard profiled five different people who were so severely influenced by one single palate that they had devoted their lives to wearing only that singular hue.

The field of art, via a large cultural institution, seems to be attempting to express the buoyancy of spring along with the models strutting down the runways. “Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to today” opened at the Museum of Modern Art on March 2nd. Organized by Ann Temkin, Curator of the Department of Painting and Sculpture, it runs until May 12, 2008. The exhibition in short revolves around the traditional commercial color chart. More deeply, the show takes off from the point of history where color became a commodity through its mass production.



Throughout history art and fashion have traveled along on an interwoven path. We all know that nothing exists in a vacuum and one of the most interesting aspects of the Color Chart exhibition is the interplay and influence between the various artists included within the show. One of the first works on display is Marcel Duchamp’s Tu m’ from 1918 (pictured). This piece literally includes a depiction of the color chart via a line of mono colored diamonds. By creating a painting that included within it mass-produced color swatches, Duchamp suggests color as a ready-made. The color chart is depicted again in a work produced by Robert Rauschenberg. Duchamp’s piece directly influenced Raushcenberg and he created his painting Rebus in 1955 after having previously viewed Duchamp’s painting. Both pieces depict the commercial color chart visually.

Jim Dine’s piece specifically includes the exhibition’s title within its own: The Studio (Red Devil Color Chart No. 1). Sherri Levin transfers interior color choices created by Le Corbusier to painted blocks of wood. Giulio Paolini, Gerhard Richter, and Richard Serra are others that provide the most visually obvious depictions of the color chart. Many themes about contemporary art as well as color are investigated in this exhibition and several other artists are included (44 in all), among them Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Carrie Mae Weems.

In her introduction to the exhibition, Ann Tempkin states that the show is made up of “…artists who take a position in which art and life mingle rather than remain separate, and where beauty is found in the everyday rather than in the ideal.” Beauty mingling with everyday life is palpable in New York City this spring. Colorful expression is not new, but the extremely rich colors and intense hues in fashion and the expression of color investigated by the Color Chart exhibition are worth presently noting. The sentiment of the color chart has woven its way into the zeitgeist of our culture this spring. As we all recover from the winter this is a welcome facet of our lives. In a time when the current economic and political environment is bleak, bright optimism is heartening to see even if it only occurs on a visually pleasing level.