“This particular shade of periwinkle always reminds me of the work of Maxfield Parrish. This 20th-century American painter is little known and rather looked down on by art critics today, but Time magazine once put him up there with Van Gogh and Cezanne. He excelled at creating idealised, pastoral landscapes. His trademark was that these landscapes softly languish under dreamy blue skies shaded with lavender, or are imbued with dusky violet-hour light. The results were uncanny, magical and rather futuristic, the imaginative spaces he created feel like exactly the kind of places our generation yearn to escape to.”
Kassia St Clair, author of The Secret Lives of Colour, on the depth of colour within Very Peri.
The focus on the use of lilac within the blue to create a sense of moody fantasy takes us towards the metaverse. Highlighted as the future of the internet and seen as a shift in how we interact with technology, the digital and the physical colliding to create a new immersive reality. Despite much discussion around what the metaverse is, if we look to the well-established world of gaming, we can get a snippet of what the metaverse could look like. Linden Lab used a shade akin to PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri in their annual virtual Second Life snowball fight.
What’s key within this virtual space, is creating an enticing mood that draws the player in. Lilac infused periwinkle blues have this atmospheric effect and are frequently used to create this futuristic atmosphere.
Within digital fashion shades close to PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri are already popular. Speaking to Karinna Grant, Co-CEO / The Dematerialised, about how they felt this colour works within the digital fashion area:
A shade that we see featuring regularly in the digital fashion and NFT sphere is a shade similar to PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri- it feels quite synonymous with the cyber and future aesthetic and there is also something quite ethereal about its qualities on a virtual garment. I think this is due to the spiritual associations people can have with some colours that have a lilac element to them. This shade is also quite uplifting and positive, maybe even healing which is much needed both in URL and IRL right now. We used such a shade called Hyper Lilac within our MCQ NFT pieces.” This Hyper Lilac shade was especially developed by Pantone for MCQ for their brand visual identity.
There is also a sense of the exotic about these tones when brought into the physical world. PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri’s multifaceted aspect enables it to work in a fresh and progressive way within physical collections, as already seen at the Chet Lo’s SS22 show.
This sense of fantasy brings newness into hair and beauty, almost mimicking the buzz around virtual influencers in the real world. Exotic blue tones are daring, playful and freeing, working across skin tones to create looks that are progressive, taking a new approach to the use of non-natural colour within this area.
PANTONE 17-3938 Peri is the chameleon of the colour world, sitting harmoniously within a diverse range of palettes. The violet-red undertone has a dynamic presence for a sporty, bright range, whereas the softened appearance of the blue enables it to sit comfortably within a neutral palette.
