Looking for Loud Luxury

Just like taste, scent, and sound, color can provoke sensations and feelings; color has the power to awaken memories and nostalgia, to take you back to a specific moment and place. I absolutely love that about color, the deep significance it holds over us, the way dressing in certain hues can change our mood and affect our entire day.

Color is the unifying theme in my work as a designer, photographer, artist, and even as a cook. I’ve always been deeply inspired by color, saturation, and the pairing of different hues. I sometimes say that color runs in my blood.

I grew up in the Midwest in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and during my childhood, I would sometimes be allowed to travel to India in the summer to visit family. I distinctly remember how starkly different the use of color in style and fashion was there, and I remember feeling at home with my instinctive clothing and décor choices. The use of maximalism, the juxtaposition of colors, patterns, fabrics, details, textures, embroideries, and the vast variety of weaves and handmade processes in the custom-made garments are a huge part of what fueled my love for fashion and my interest in becoming a designer.

One of my early collections was about color itself, titled “Color is a Cure.” It was about the healing power of color. I believe that different colors hold deep meaning and power over us; there is a reason we are each attracted to certain shades and sometimes even repelled by others. What is more luxurious than the power of color and craftsmanship?

I never understood the appeal of “quiet luxury,” a trend that arose around 2020 and became very popular in 2023. But make no mistake, this idea of elevating a neutral, white and beige palette to a higher status is not new; it is connected to the ideals of white supremacy and colonialism. White and neutrals too are colors, and all colors can and should have their moments, but the dominance of a white aesthetic is classist and bores me.

The erasure of color, and the concept of quiet luxury, have everything to do with the false idea of the superiority of Western culture; the fear of color represents the fear of non-Western cultures. This fear of color has existed throughout time in art and fashion in the West. The idea of a neutral palette being more “elevated” is a distinctly colonial perspective, a mindset that still pervades the world of fashion and design today.

In his book Chromophobia, David Batchelor argues that “colour is bound up with the fate of Western culture,” and that “colour has been the object of extreme prejudice in Western culture. For the most part, this prejudice has remained unchecked and passed unnoticed… As with all prejudices its manifest form, its loathing, masks a fear: a fear of contamination and corruption by something that is unknown or appears unknowable. This loathing of colour, this fear of corruption through colour, needs a name: chromophobia.”

Batchelor also writes, “Chromophobia manifests itself in the many and varied attempts to purge colour from culture, to devalue colour, to diminish its significance, to deny its complexity.” Over the years of running my fashion brand, abacaxi, there were times when I was confronted with chromophobia, or fear of color, though I didn’t always realize what it was in real time. I’ve occasionally gotten feedback from store buyers that my brand was too colorful for them or listened to salespeople explaining that they didn’t know how to merchandise my line, saying that it was not yet ready or “elevated enough,” or watched them display it in the back of the store.

Truthfully, I’m much more interested in the kind of luxury that embraces the deep significance of color, and that considers cultural history and craft to be the height of elevated style and worthy of status. What is more luxurious than garments that hold history and healing energy within them?

I want an instinctive maximalism and loud luxury, rather than minimalism and quiet luxury. I’m seeking bold, saturated, unabashed color. If you feel called to bring more color and hand-crafted, naturally dyed luxury into your wardrobe, abacaxi and I are here for you.