Fashion's Color Power: Who Sets the Trend?

No one can give a neat answer to who sets fashion’s dominant colors. Brands and designers don’t officially collude, yet color trends can still appear coordinated. That’s the reply to Linda from Los Angeles, who asked why brown seemed to lead that autumn, with pops of purple and red. The short answer: “sort of.”

No Cabal, Still a Pattern

The article dismisses the most dramatic version of centralized control. Designers don’t gather in “late-night cabals” before a fashion season to pick a shade they haven’t used lately, then agree to bring it back so consumers feel compelled to buy new items. There’s “absolutely no official collusion.”

But no official agreement doesn’t explain how a trend takes shape. The article points to two forces that can make colors seem coordinated: one is straightforward, while the other is more systemic. It doesn’t explain what either force is. Instead, the answer draws a line around what it can say, leaving the machinery behind the pattern partly out of view.

That gap matters to Linda’s question. When different collections share colors, the article says, designers needn’t have secretly coordinated. Still, it doesn’t describe the process as a run of entirely isolated choices. Its account points to influences beyond any one designer’s decision, including a systemic force, but offers no further detail.

Designers See the Same Shade

Henry Zankov, founder of a namesake line and artistic director of the reinvented Diane von Furstenberg label, said he’d wondered about the same issue in design school. His curiosity places the question within fashion’s training and work, not just among shoppers trying to make sense of what they see in stores.

Joseph Altuzarra, founder of a namesake brand, recalled spotting similarities among collections during fashion week. “Oh damn, they're doing the same color or same type of print as me,” he said. The remark captures the moment when one designer sees a peer using the same color or print. The article presents it as an example of the pattern, not proof that the designers agreed to anything.

From the Runway to the Store

The article turns to a familiar scene from “The Devil Wears Prada.” Miranda Priestly’s “cerulean blue” speech describes a color passing through fashion collections and on to department stores. Priestly says, “Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns, and then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent — wasn't it? — who showed cerulean military jackets. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores —”

The speech gives the trend a sequence. Designers show cerulean, other collections pick it up, and the shade reaches department stores. It traces a path from collections to retail, but the article doesn’t claim designers planned that sequence together.

So Linda’s answer is neither a secret meeting nor a full explanation of how color travels through fashion. The article rejects official collusion, names two forces and leaves their workings unstated. Brown, purple and red prompted the question; the explanation leaves the system behind those patterns only partly described.