The future is bright. Dazzlingly, incandescently bright. That’s the message coming from menswear’s most influential designers, who have nailed their colours to the mast with their SS22 collections. And what vibrant colours they are. From hot fuchsia at Valentino to tennis-ball yellow at Prada and fuel-rod green at Louis Vuitton, it’s a palette that wouldn’t look out of place in a special-edition set of Stabilo highlighter pens.

It’s tempting to chalk this sudden explosion of colour up to a kind of post-pandemic euphoria, an urgent need for creative self-expression after months spent cooped up in dreary isolation. And there’s surely some truth to this. It’s worth pointing out that while these clothes are available to buy now, they were originally revealed to the public in the summer of 2021, when we were taking our first, tentative steps out from the shadows of Covid. It was a time of release, of reconnection and of unbridled joy, when dressing up in all the colours of the rainbow seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

But that’s far from the whole picture. Take a step back and you’ll notice a wider trend for bold colour that has been developing for a few seasons now, having first been instigated by Bottega Veneta in late 2020 when it presented its SS21 collection, which featured the first glimpse of a Kermit the Frog shade of green now recognised simply as Bottega Green. Divisive at first, this love-it-or-loathe-it colour was soon being applied to everything from tailoring and shearling coats to rubber boots and terry-cotton robes. In a move that echoed the brand strategy of Tiffany & Co., the iconic jewellery brand with its signature shade of eggshell blue, Bottega Green even made an appearance on the brand’s packaging.

Putting the weight of its brand behind this colour might have seemed a risky move at first, but it turned out to be a huge success. Bottega Veneta’s impossible-to-ignore shade of green was the undisputed colour of 2021 and rocketed this once understated Italian brand to the pinnacle of the fashion charts, making a star of its creative director at the time, Mr Daniel Lee, whose experiments with colour laid down a blueprint for success that other brands now appear eager to follow.

These brands aren’t just drawn from the progressive edges of the fashion world, but from across the spectrum. Alongside collections from boundary-pushing designers such as Givenchy’s Mr Matthew Williams and the late Mr Virgil Abloh of Louis Vuitton, you’ll find bold use of colour in collections from typically more austere designers, such as Ermenegildo Zegna.

It is often the case that trends exist mostly, if not entirely, in the minds of fashion journalists, but what’s remarkable about the trend for bright colour is that you can see it happening in real life. What’s driving this change? In part, it can be explained by our shifting working patterns. We have turned away from the office-based nine to five and towards more flexible arrangements.

This change, turbo-charged by the pandemic, has been accompanied by a decline in corporate business attire. In the space left by its absence, a new individuality has begun to flourish. Just as the grey suit was for many years a symbol of corporate conformity, so now a pop of bright colour is a great way of standing out.

Perhaps even more impactful than the changing face of work, though, is the growing influence of social media and celebrity culture. In an increasingly crowded online space, it’s often the loudest voice that gets heard – and the brightest colour that gets noticed.

This can be witnessed in the NBA, where players such as Messrs LaMelo Ball, Russell Westbrook, Kyle Kuzma and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander use their Instagram accounts to engage in a weekly battle of sartorial one-upmanship. Or on the red carpet, which plays host to an increasingly vivid display of straight-off-the-runway fashion. Who could forget Mr Daniel Craig in a cranberry-pink velvet tux at the London premiere of No Time To Die; Mr Neil Patrick Harris in a rainbow ombré Berluti suit at San Francisco’s Castro Theater for the unveiling of The Matrix Resurrections; or Mr Billy Porter at the 2021 American Music Awards in a fluorescent-blue suit from the Antwerp-based brand Botter that came complete with a matching umbrella hat?

It bears mentioning, of course, that celebrity Instagram accounts, red carpets and fashion-week catwalks are all a comfortable distance from the real world, where such unrestrained application of colour would likely result in fewer gushing fashion thinkpieces and more raised eyebrows.

If you aren’t an NBA star or the actor who until recently played James Bond, then a more judicious, conservative approach pays dividends. Think of it as dipping a toe into the trend, rather than taking a running leap into it. The trick is to pick one or two pieces and use them as accents. Dries Van Noten’s Big Bird-yellow leather slippers, Bottega Veneta’s bags and wallets – yes, Bottega Green is still a thing – and Balenciaga’s neon-orange sweats and T-shirts all offer a way of treating your outfit to a splash, instead of a soaking, of colour.