THE JOURNAL
Mr Pedro Pascal attends The Mandalorian, season three premiere in Los Angeles, 28 February 2023. Photograph by Ms Allison Dinner/Reuters
Yellow is a colour known to provoke strong opinion, but at least one historical figure would have been thrilled by its recent revival in menswear. “How lovely yellow is!” Mr Vincent Van Gogh declared in a letter to his brother, Theo, in 1888. Living in Arles in the south of France, the artist was dazzled by the quality of the light, which produced “yellow, sulphur yellow, lemon yellow, golden yellow”. In his last years, Van Gogh’s paintings worshipped yellow. Sunflowers, wheat fields, stars, houses, hats, terrace lights, even a certain sallowness of skin – everything was illuminated.
Many theories have been put forward for the painter’s sudden, yellow-tinted turn, from the physical (glaucoma and seizures, possibly treated with digitalis, which can halo the vision) to the psychological (mania) and self-destructive (the side effects of absinthe). Perhaps, though, it was just its overwhelming power. Every shade can encourage obsession – books written about blue, fairytales and love affairs hinging on red – but there is something in yellow that makes people suspicious. It is not enough for Van Gogh to have loved the colour, in all its citrus, buttery, aureate glory. There must be some deeper reason, something darker to explain this radiant turn.
Mr Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Armand Roulin, Arles, 1888. Photograph by akg-images
Sir Mick Jagger performs on Ready Steady Go! at Wembley Television Studios, London, 27 May 1966. Photograph by Getty Images
Like the other colours of the rainbow, yellow possesses connotations both positive and negative. If green stands for wealth, nature and envy, then yellow is the colour of optimism, cowardice and modernism. Its brightness suggests joy and warmth, while its proximity to gold brings a whiff of abundance. It has also been seen as the colour of illness and ageing, the jittery tone of anxiety, its energetic potential offset by something more unsettling.
Symbolism aside, it is also just eye-catching. “Yellow is visible, stands out, attracts attention,” writes Mr Michel Pastoureau in Yellow: The History Of A Colour. Its visibility is precisely what makes it such a pleasurable, and challenging, wardrobe addition. It is often adopted by those whose choices have tended towards the outré: Sir Mick Jagger, Mr David Bowie, Mr Jimi Hendrix, Prince, Lil Nas X. It is the natural colour of performers, a jolt of sunshine under the spotlight, but its brightness can also make people wary. How much does yellow demand from its wearer?
Recently, yellow has made an attractive case for itself as a more casual colour. The SS23 men’s shows were alive with yellow, in shades ranging from cloudy lemonade to Van Gogh sunflower. Louis Vuitton’s show marked a final send-off for Mr Virgil Abloh and took the idea of creative freedom to heart with a yellow brick road catwalk offset with shades of purple, orange and glaring canary. This was yellow as something both overflowing and understated. Intermingled with lavender, it had an intricately crafted feel. As the background to boxy tailoring, it was as functional and perky as a child’s toy.
From left to right: SS23 runway; Louis Vuitton, Etro, Zegna, JW Anderson. All photographs by Launchmetrics Spotlight
At Etro and Bianca Saunders, yellow also offered a relaxed decadence. Loose lines and trippy patterns blurred the line between 1930s glamour and the psychedelic hedonism of the 1960s. At Zegna, it pooled around the models’ ankles in the form of billowing trousers and brought extra zest to a series of knits. At JW Anderson, it formed the backdrop for Rembrandt’s startled, sketched face. At Mihara Yasuhiro, it offered a tongue-in-cheek take on utility (sturdy yellow bags stitched together into a vest) with pale, beachy layers best worn on a boat.
At its best, yellow offers the buoyancy of spring and the sun-soaked promise of summer. It becomes the colour of daffodils and buttercups, of long, golden days and relaxed temperatures. Its harsher tones can feel modern or even industrial (office strip lighting, road-warning signs, high-vis vests), but there is something broadly leisurely in yellow. Acid house rave or beach bum drifter – why work when you could just play?
“Yellow is one of those colours that can be as striking or understated as needed”
Like its brightest bedfellows, yellow is one of those colours that can be as striking or understated as needed. Just as green can mean emerald or khaki and pink can mean bubblegum or blush, yellow doesn’t have to be a garish option. Gentler shades bring much of its levity without the glare. Think of the actor Mr Pedro Pascal appearing in a 1970s-style muted yellow from the Gucci Ha Ha Ha collection at the Mandalorian premiere, complete with a preppy jumper tied over his shoulders. Or fellow actor Mr Chris Pine wearing a mustard and custard combination on the red carpet in Mexico. Yellow can be fantastically over the top, but it can also be soft, earthy and elegant.
The textile designer Mr Bernat Klein, a fiend for exciting shades and colour combinations, once wrote that “just as words can be used in many ways – to conduct a factual business correspondence, to explain a personal and vital point of view or to crystallise and express a lifetime of experience and feeling in a poem – colours, too, can be seen and used in many significant ways”. This is true more broadly, but it feels especially apt in the context of something such as yellow: a colour that is not entirely straightforward, but will reward those willing to figure out its singular language.