Archroma, a global leader in color and specialty chemicals that pioneered custom color engineering in textile and fashion, recently sponsored a seminar with founder of Design Seeds, Jessica Colaluca, during this year’s PrintSource New York exhibition. The said exhibition that focused on the use of Color Anthropology and how recent global political events including the election of Donald Trump and the passing of Brexit may alter the already established fashion industry color palette for the upcoming season.

Colaluca avered that the US election of Donald Trump impacted the colors we are - and will be - wearing this upcoming season. While not in the literal sense of red, white and blue being patriotic, but the notion of Americana and how people want to relate to it was shaken. In many ways, the modern folk/hipster aesthetic was born in reaction to consumerism gone wild which made natural colors make sense the past three years. But with the volatility of politics, nationally and globally, it makes sense the aesthetic will evolve dramatically once again.

Allowing for a feeling of empowerment, optimism and selfexpression, Colaluca pointed to strong fashion trends like flannel shirts and red dad caps that have dominated the market such as Modern Folk and Americana start blurring political lines of very different people with distinctly different ethos.

As early as Q4 2016, color anthropologists could see a fallout coming on this trend aesthetic in the hipster and early adopter segments because the aesthetics cross over with people of very different political and cultural beliefs, therefore separating themselves from a belief system they don't share. To address the fast pace of these shifting color trends, Colaluca highly recommends that fashion designers and brands leverage tools like Archroma's Color Atlas system. “The Color Atlas has beautiful modern colors that are constantly relevant, maintained Colaluca.