HOT PINK SUMMER

Here's all the pink-spiration you need to wear the hottest colour and the happiest trend of the season

- MEHERNAAZ DHONDY

Since Pierpaolo Piccioli dropped his everything-touched-by-pink Fall/Winter 2022-23 collection, dopamine dressing got a shot in the arm. From Zendaya in head-to-toe pink, who sat in the FROW, to Pantone Color Institute officially collaborating with Valentino to christen this shade of pink as ‘Pink PP’ (the shade by Pierpaolo Piccioli), the show notes indicated a stripping down of the palette to a single hue: “Pink as a manifestation of the unconscious and a liberation from the need for realism. The accumulation of pink elements is such as to eliminate the visual shock to bring out, together, the unique character of the person, expressed by the face and the eyes, and the work on the pieces of clothing: The signs that shape them into a silhouette, the textures that give them consistency, and the decorations that are part of the construction. The subtraction is, in fact, amplification, magnifying both the humans and the clothing. A variety of bodies, attitudes, and physicalities, enhanced by the monochromatic palette, bring such a vision to life.”

With Rihanna and Kim Kardashian in the lead, the deluge of big pink energy can hardly be ignored this season. While RiRi’s internet-breaking pregnancy announcement featured a bout of hot pink via a Chanel puffer coat, vintage of course, from Karl Lagerfeld’s Fall 1996 collection, Kim K’s SNL debut, now documented in detail on her new reality show The Kardashians, featured not one but three hot pink looks in her current fave, Balenciaga and her trademark built-in heel-catsuits. Global music stages like the Grammys saw Travis Barker, Billy Porter and Saweetie blush in pink while Justin Bieber stuck to a standout bubblegum pink beanie; meanwhile, Harry Styles rocked his Coachella performance in pink pants and a ruffled coat.