Summer is to dare: which are the top coloured items for this open-air season?
Text by: Fiammetta Cesana
Did you attend your Zumba, cross-fit, TRX, Bikram yoga… and whatever weird-name-workout classes, during this winter? Hopefully yes! So forget about your total black look and go for a full colour addiction, with a little bit of nostalgia…
From souvenir shops to high fashion catwalks
This year, one of the most colourful items in the history of fashion, the Hawaiian shirt goes through a real revival. A hymn to the joie de vivre, with its floral and garden style patterns, this typical, comfortable garment re-emerges from SS18 collections. Historically, the so-called “Aloha shirt”, representative of a free-minded and carefree lifestyle, came up as the result of the hybrid culture of the Hawaiian Islands, populated by Japanese, Filipino, Portuguese and Tahitian immigrants and treated by the US as a tourist destination. According locals, private schools’ students in Honolulu were the first to introduce the shirt as a tailor-made item; while others say that the Hollywood actor John Barrymore was the pioneer as he commissioned a special shirt to the local dressmaker Dolores Miyamoto.
Then, in the 1960s, Californian fun loving surfers made the shirt much appealing and bigger companies started to produce it, often decorated with more imaginative patterns and printed from the inside — a model that is still widespread among the Hawaiians. So this witty short-sleeved shirt, from a typical souvenir of exotic vacations, turned to be a great fashion trend, appreciated by international celebrities across cinematographic and music panorama.
Even today, the Aloha shirt is the most exported item produced on the island. Originally intended for informal occasions, this summer pret-a-porter designers combine it with an innovative and elegant twist, combining it with double-breasted jackets, soft cut trousers or tailored ones, and even replacing the iconic tropical prints with logos, cars, drinks and other brightly coloured doodles.
Painting your face as an artwork
Our makeup kit has been engaged with a colourful summer atmosphere as well, and again… with a blast from the past. Crayola, the internationally known art supplier, has launched a full beauty collection all shaped like our mythic wax crayons. Most of us will nostalgically remember those beautiful leisure moments at elementary school when we were allowed to play with our pastels.
Thanks to their oily character, we could easily smudge across the lines with our finger filling out sheets with great colourful figures. And today the white canvas is our own face! Using crayons-shaped eyeshadows, lipsticks, highlighters, also packaged in classic Crayola yellow and green boxes, we will feel like going back to childhood and being free to use all our creativity for a super glowing makeup, perfect for the summer. So why not use these amazing varied-colours makeup to try the rainbow eyelash trend?
Match your swimsuit with a fashion float
Another coloured revelation of this summer is something which can’t fit in our wardrobe or beauty kit, but still very fashionable and with a vintage charm. Missoni, in collaboration with Funboy, the California-based creator of original pool floats, has presented Butterfly, a pool float made to bring Milanese catwalks to your backyard oasis. It melds the American original design with the Italian brand signature patterns, creating a kaleidoscopic piece of floating fashion.
How did they come up with this idea? Their partnership was born thanks to 2.0 network facilities, since the Funboy founding team reached out to Angela Missoni in 2016, over an Instagram direct message, asking if she might consider a brand collaboration. As fate would have it, Angela was a fan of their floats and immediately said yes to this out-of-the-box collaboration. You shouldn’t miss the chance to fly across the water with this super chic butterfly…