Fashionable colours:
Henry Ford, creator of the first production line motor car, famously said you can have it in any colour you like as long as it’s black.
The US industrialist knew a thing or two about marketing and clearly had a feel for comedy, too.
Since those mono days, the marketing industry has developed a whole industry around colour. We may still be selling fifty shades of grey, but there are now thousands of other tones to choose from.
Henry Ford could not have imagined his Model Ts rolling off the assembly line in the company’s current rainbow range of Mars Red, Moondust Silver or Kinetic Blue.
In product manufacture, and the marketing that surrounds it, colour is not random. It is fundamental. It says something about what the item and the purchaser stands for. As such it is central to fashion, as creator and as follower.
Colour is emblematic: red is the traditional colour of London – from phone boxes and buses to Coldstream guardsmen. White roses are for Yorkshire, red for Lancashire. Black is funereal, white is virginal.
Consumer product companies are always eager to latch on to the latest colour fashion: natural wood tints, black, silver, primary colours. They have all had their day in the sun.
It has now emerged that from mobile phones to wheelie suitcases, the “in” colour is rose gold. It is the fashion favourite shade currently making it onto and into every aspect of our lives.
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“We thought it was only a matter of time before it made its way into the bedroom.”
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In recent months the shade has been the go-to colour for technology products in particular, with phones, smart watches, headphones and laptops all getting a shimmery overhaul, alongside more traditional fashion items such as shoes, jewellery, wallets and belts.
One retailer has now begun stocking rose gold bed frames. Steve Pickering, managing director of Sussex Beds, said: “We had seen the trend for rose gold start to spill over from fashion into areas such as tech and interiors, with the colour proving popular in chairs and coffee table design.
“We thought it was only a matter of time before it made its way into the bedroom.”
The popularity of rose gold dates back to the 19th century when it became the choice precious metal among rich Russians.
The original material was used by mixing yellow gold with copper to create a pink-tinged metal that flattered skin tones, and it quickly got picked up by jewellers around the world.
Its popularity has remained steady among jewellery makers and the shade has dipped in and out of fashion with clothes designers.
It exploded onto the tech scene with the launch of Apple’s rose gold iPhone and special edition watch.
Now what would Mr Ford have made of a rose gold coloured Model T?
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