What is "dopamine dressing" and what are the colors of the season

With the long-awaited return to normality, there are also opportunities to shine again. The effects of the pandemic situation on fashion tastes and inclinations emerge in this Fall/Winter 2021-2022 season, and as I wanted to demonstrate, after two years rather comfortable and dark, the desire to dare and be noticed is skyrocketing. Among the trends that are the result of primary needs and deficiencies, the "dopamine dressing" explodes, based on the use of an electric and particularly bold color palette, alternated with strong color-block contrasts and thick patterns or tie-dye. Electric blue, bottega green and pink become the protagonists of a new scenario, born on social media and then synthesized in the collections of luxury giants Tom Ford, Versace, Jacquemus, Bottega Veneta, Rick Owens, Loewe but also by the emerging brands House of Sunny, AGR and Lisa Say Gah!. The hope and the desire to return to shared experiences such as clubbing or concerts become the perfect opportunity to awaken and express all the desire for life that has been dormant in recent years.

Fashion to feel good

Mckinsey’s research confirms that in 2020 the global population was ready to spend and pamper themselves with fashion purchases at the first international lockdown. The growth in sales of garments in bright shades such as electric blue, bottega green and pink compared to previous years has grown sharply, demonstrating the widespread desire to invest in clothing that makes you feel good, pampered, satisfied and even sexy, regardless of cost. Identified as a trend by large luxury retailers and e-tailers such as Matches Fashion, dopamine dressing should work almost like dopamine, a molecule produced by our body under particularly pleasant and rewarding circumstances, that ensures the functioning of the memory and increases the ability to attention. With these vitaminic and powerful colors the chances to feel 100%, to enjoy, pleasure and above all not to be forgotten soar to the stars.

Electric blue

Electric blue is the representation of the color of the lightning that explodes in the sky, the light emitted by the electric sparks in contact with the atmosphere. Well, wearing electric blue is impossible not to feel charged and able to transfer their energy only by presence in an environment, catalyze attention and express all the energy we have available. The appearance of Bella Hadid at the Off White "Laboratory of Fun" show for the collection Ready-To-Wear Fall 2021 with electric blue sheath dress combined with shiny knee boot seemed really a bolt from the blue.

Bottega Green

The wording has not yet been formalized by Pantone, who in the meantime identifies it as "Parakeet Green" or "Parrot Green", but the whole fashion world is well aware of the bright green hue halfway between the acid and the cold that distinguishes the design of the coolest Italian brand of the moment. Daniel Lee brought a breath of fresh air to the historic brand not only through a skilful reworking of the historical concepts of Bottega Veneta, but also through a strong innovative charge. As a demonstration, the green shop has earned the first place in the shades of the summer season, and will do the same in the winter season.

Pink

Always color associated with the female world, pink can be gentle and delicate as a flower but also powerful and catalyzing as the shell of an exotic dragonfruit. Today the brightest and brightest shades of fuchsia pink bring light in the everyday greyness and manifest themselves as the perfect color accent to break an outfit based on monotonal balances, even in the cold season, thanks to the return to pop-punk aesthetics and dopamine dressing, of course. Unlike the widespread thought that sees pink as a summer color, last year Jacquemus launched its "Pink Christmas Capsule" in December, obtaining a lot of success, which was in fact also translated into the popular AW21 collection "La Montaigne" containing some of the most interesting micro-trends of the period.