Around 500 guests sat stunned as the beautiful Miss Universe Vietnam 2015, Pham Huong, and renowned singer, Ngoc Giau, performed an extract from an opera play at the prestigious Gem Center in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC).
The performance was part of a fashion show and one of many events organised for Colour Futures 2017 — essentially a few days long marketing event organised by Akzonobel, the paint and chemicals corporation, to launch its ‘colour of the year’: a blue-grey hue aptly named ‘denim drift.’
Seriously, a colour launch? It seemed to be a ritzy, multimillion dollar event — or if we were to go by Vietnamese currency — a zillion dong event. Media from the region were flown into HCMC, who were wined and dined and taken on city tours. If paint giants can spend so much on a marketing initiative, there must be some truth in the magic of colour.
Paint giants spend millions on promoting colours for the year. But are they marketing or dictating?
And no expense was spared to remind Colour Futures 2017 attendees of the various ways we can incorporate denim drift into our lives. The Elle Fashion Journey 2016 showcased lithe models sashaying across the runway in collections by Vietnamese designers inspired by 2017’s colour of the year.
Dieu Anh showed 25 creations of ‘An old dream of a fabulous Saigon’ collection in the 1950s style with diverse colours of denim drift. Anh Ha, a brand from London started by two overseas Vietnamese designers, Viet Ha Dang and Anh Trieu, unveiled a collection inspired from the myth of the Sword Lake with 20 ready-to-wear items made from silk and viscose in theme colours of cobalt blue, emerald blue, black and white.