More brands are using specific colors to supplement logos and to communicate who they are and what they stand for.

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There was only one word to describe Valentino’s Fall 2022 show in Paris last month: pink. The runway, the walls, the eye shadow, the pillars of the historic Le Carreau du Temple: All came bathed in a hue on the hotter side of fuchsia.

The shade, dubbed “Valentino Pink PP,” was developed by the fashion house’s design team and color specialists at Pantone. It is now splashed across the brand’s website and social media platforms. And all that pink clothing? It will be in boutiques this fall.

Ambassador Zendaya in the same shade.

Valentino isn't the first company to tie its brand to a color. There’s the long-lasting: streetwear stalwart Supreme’s bright red that flashes on shopping bags, sweatshirts and even skateboards.

And there’s the contemporary steeped in history: Bottega Veneta’s parakeet green. The Italian house went heavy on it during the spring 2021 season, piquing the interest of a pandemic-weary crowd and elevating the playful shade to a shorthand of “Bottega Green.”

A $3,500 Bottega Veneta handbag in the brand’s parakeet green.

Archive polaroids show the green painted on the company’s storefronts in the 1990s; it appears on branded dust bags in a 1985 film made by Andy Warhol.

Some colors are already cemented in clients’ minds as representing heritage fashion brands. Hermès orange was first used out of necessity in wartime Paris when materials were in short supply and the only boxes available happened to be orange. The color has become synonymous with the French luxury house.

Colors, when claimed by fashion companies, can act as a type of visual shorthand for a brand that can easily be spotted from a distance—or in an Instagram Story.

They can supplement or even substitute logos, and are proving to be useful tools as fashion moves further online, said Emily Safian-Demers, editor at Wunderman Thompson Intelligence (the trend forecasting unit of marketing agency Wunderman Thompson).

Tiffany’s robin’s-egg blue appeared on the cover of the jeweler’s first sales catalog in 1845. It wasn’t until 1998 that “Tiffany Blue” was registered as a color trademark and 2001 that it was standardized by Pantone (“1837 Blue”) as a custom color exclusively for the brand’s use.

One of the newest fashion brands to claim a color is Brady, the eponymous athletic line launched in January by NFL quarterback Tom Brady. The company worked with Pantone to create Brady Blue—a vivid shade close to cobalt that features throughout the footballer’s first sportswear collection.

Now, the custom color sits on Pantone’s official scale at number 112-22, and, for $95, fans can buy a Brady Blue hoodie or $55 for a Brady Blue long-sleeve T-shirt. And if that’s too much of one hue, there’s a pair of $20 socks—in Brady Blue, of course.

Produced by Leah Latella and Sara Morosi

Photos by Valentino; Getty Images; Shutterstock(2); Bottega Veneta; Tiffany & Co.; Brady Video by Valentino