Posted by Bethan Holt, Junior Fashion Editor at Large
Cadbury purple, less commonly known as Pantone 265c, has been on our collective visual radar for the past 100 years, ever since the Birmingham chocolate company switched the colour of its packaging in tribute to Queen Victoria's favourite colour. We're used to seeing it, ripping it, scrunching it and gifting it but how about wearing it?
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| Cadbury purple at Balenciaga (via catwalking.com) |
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| lilac at Christopher Kane (via catwalking.com) |
At the latest round of SS14 shows, there was lots and lots of lilac. If anything's going to move us on from pink next summer then it will be a pretty light purple- lilac ball gown skirts, lilac sweatshirts, lilac denim, lilac anything and everything. But coinciding with Cadbury's long-running legal battle to secure copyright on its signature hue came a smattering of true deep dark purple outfits which made me think, very shallowly obviously, that I would really like to buy some purple clothes soon. Cadbury even sent a model down to LFW dressed in a Cadbury purple dress to promote their cause but still unfortunately lost their five year fight. Nevertheless, I still think that we will always associate the colour of Dairy Milk bars and Milk Tray boxes with Cadbury rather any random given confectioner who decides to jump on the purple bandwagon.
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| Cadbury purple crops up in the new Wes Anderson (via itsnicethat.com) |
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| Cadbury purple at MaxMara (via catwalking.com) |
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| Marc Jacobs uniform jackets for SS14 (via catwalking.com) |
Anyway, I was reminded of this new fashion
need again this afternoon when I clicked through to the trailer of
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson's latest offering. Lo and behold, the lead character Gustave H is a hotel manager and he, along with all the other members of staff at The Grand Budapest, wears Cadbury-coloured uniforms which also have a hint of the Marc Jacobs SS14 Victorian jacket about them. These are niche fashion observations I know but it never fails to amuse me how various cultural threads can chime together so that it seems like they might have been planned. The hotel is even this season's candy pink in case you're not ready to move on to lilac and purple yet! Now I know that that purple thing I want is a shiny-buttoned uniform jacket.
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| The Grand Budapest Hotel is Wes Anderson's new film (via itsnicethat.com) |
