"Thousands of purples and thousands of reds are always spring", when the Lunar New Year is approaching, major brands have launched Chinese New Year limited series with red as the main tone. "Chinese Red" has become the main responsibility of the Spring Festival Atmosphere Group.
BABY DIOR's Chinese New Year Limited Series
For example, BABY DIOR's Chinese New Year limited series is taking red as the main tone, sincerely paying tribute to Chinese culture; Italian fashion tights CALZEDONIA, North American high-end silk brand MANITO and other fashion brands have combined traditional Chinese New Year red elements to launch items.
CALZEDONIA 2022 Chinese New Year Collection
"Chinese red" does not refer to a single red, that is, it is not limited to a standard color value, and the color varies with the scope of application. From the traditional cinnabar red, positive color, to "national flag red" and "Olympic red" can be called "Chinese red".
MANITO Year of the Tiger New Year Collection
Through the inheritance of various forms such as clothing, architecture, utensils, and artistic creations, colors are constantly given connotation and cultural significance. Just as red means auspicious and festive, it embodies a certain sense of ceremony and has become one of the representative colors of the Chinese nation.
As an important fashion and art language, many luxury brands have their own exclusive colors, and their recognition has even exceeded the brand LOGO. Examples include Hermès orange, BOTTEGA VENETA classic green, and Tiffany blue.
Tiffany blue, also known as Robin egg blue, has its own RGB and CMYK color values. In 1845, Tiffany blue was first used in the brand direct mail catalog "Blue Book", and since then, Tiffany blue has been widely used in brand materials such as commodity gift boxes.
Tiffany blue is also known as the most expensive blue in the world. To prevent this unique blue from being misused by the market, in 2001, pantone standard color cards named Tiffany Blue, or PMS number 1837, after the year of TIFFANY's birth.
PANTONE17-3938 periwinkle blue
Pantone's 2022 representative color is also dominated by blue, namely PANTONE17-3938 Peri blue. This is also the first time that PANTONE's annual popular representative color has created a new color.
Pantone Inc., a globally renowned agency for developing and researching color, is also a supplier of color systems, offering professional color options in many industries including printing, textiles, interior design, and more. It is headquartered in the United States.
In 2000, the Pantone Color Institute created Pantone Color of the Year. PANTONE VIEW Colour Planner is a twice-yearly forecasting tool for fashion color trends that provides seasonal color orientation and inspiration 24 months in advance with a view to gaining widespread use in menswear, womenswear, sportswear, casual wear, cosmetics and industry design. "Pantone Color" is not only about the idea of color, but also a big business on a global scale.
In recent years, with the improvement of cultural self-confidence and the rise of the national tide, some institutions have co-branded the research results of traditional Chinese colors with Chinese aesthetic genes. The Book of Poetry, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the Architecture of the Forbidden City, and the Tang and Song Poems have all become treasures of knowledge and inspiration for traditional Chinese colors.
Mr. Qian Zhongshu once said in the "Pipe Cone Compilation": "(In the book of poems) Wei, Yan, and Qi Feng are like portraits of white ink and white, and they do not render Dan Huang," presenting the beauty of women's "plain and true".
In the chapter "The Beauty of Clothing", "Pink Dai LuoQi - Fashion of Ancient Chinese Women's Clothing", summarizes the colors of the "Book of Poetry" and summarizes the five major color systems of women's clothing categories, namely cyan, red, yellow, white and black. Among them, the red system includes color names such as Zhu, Chi, and Xuan.
The Book of Poetry often takes natural objects as a metaphor for the natural beauty of women. "Silk Scarf", "Yan Ru Shunhua", "Hua Ru Tao Li", "Hand Like Soft Li", all take the natural objects "Shun", "Peach", "Li", "Li", "Shun", describing the beauty of women.
The book "Pink Dai Luo Qi - Ancient Chinese Women's Clothing Fashion" records that "vermilion, glyph from wood, the Classic of Mountains and Seas says: 'The state of the country that covers the mountain, red skin, the name zhumu. And Zhu Chi, deeply ethereal also. ’
The myths, legends and colors of the Classic of Mountains and Seas in "Decoding oriental colors"
The Classic of Mountains and Seas is a famous ancient book in Chinese history, and its content involves the germ of ancient myths, religions, and aesthetics, and many scholars regard it as an encyclopedia of ancient life.
Lou Shengsen, a professor at the Fashion College of Donghua University, believes that unlike the scientific colorology derived from optics in the West, Chinese color theory and artistic characteristics do not create sensory illusions in an intuitive form, but pay attention to the virtual reality, vivid charm, pay attention to the realm of time and space transcendence, the unity of heaven and man, and its aesthetic concepts and tastes reflect the philosophical thinking that Chinese color and traditional culture are in the same vein.
Lou Shengsen summarized the color concept of the color language of the Classic of Mountains and Seas as: red, red, ochre, Zhu, Dan, Tong, Xuan, White, Plain, Mu, Black, Wu, Xuan, Yellow, Qing, Cang, Bi, Cui, Purple, Cocoon, 茈, 釆, 五色, 赤黑, 赤黄, 青黄, 苍黑, 青碧, 28 words that describe colors. Among them, red, ochre, Zhu, Dan, Tong, and Xuan can be attributed to "red".
Han Zhengxuan's annotation "Ceremonial Ceremony and Scholar's Crown Ceremony" also has a description of vermilion, and the Chinese ancestors believed that vermilion represented immortality, and vermilion was also the "positive color" at that time, which belonged to the noble color.
The description of color by the ancient Chinese people has undergone a process of development from figurative to abstract. At present, the research and development and promotion of traditional Chinese colors in the industry is still in its infancy. Guo Hao, author of "Color Aesthetics in the Forbidden City", mentions in the preface to the book that he found in a primary and secondary school in Tokyo:
"The school whitewashes the corridor walls with traditional Japanese colors and allusions, 'golden tea' and 'Edo purple', and each wall presents elegant traditional colors in turn, supplemented by elegant fonts to introduce their origins. How can children not cherish and love the traditional colors and aesthetic traditions of their own country? ”
Guo Hao believes that the difficulty of finding traditional Chinese colors, in addition to the gap between ancient Chinese and modern Chinese, there is also the uncertainty of color values. "Japanese traditional color experts follow the ancient method of dyeing to restore traditional colors, which is relatively accurate," and the final formation of Japanese traditional color spectra relies on the gradual formation of industry consensus and industry standards. ”
The more people use the color card, the more versatile it is, and the more convenient it is to communicate, so that the color card can form brand value. "Traditional Chinese Colors The Color Aesthetics in the Forbidden City" contains "Traditional Chinese Color Spectrum", and the book "Decoding Oriental Colors" also presents a "List of Oriental Colors that Love To Paint".
BCBGMAXAZRIA X iLuv Vivid Love Makeup Fashion Show
Traditional Chinese colors are also moving from color cards to reality. BCBGMAXAZRIA X iLuv Vivid Love Makeup Fashion Show was held recently, which is also based on the theme of "Wonderland of Mountains and Seas", presenting the contemporary use of ancient myths, legends and mythological colors in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
The mythological color of the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" in the show
In addition to academic professional institutions, commercial power is also very important for accurately sorting out and restoring traditional Chinese colors. Combined with digital technology and the combination of color systems into multiple industries such as clothing and home furnishing through creative design, traditional Chinese colors are giving a "new look" to the present.