color feature of luxury brand clothing, and its change in

Copyright © 2017 Japan Society of Kansei Engineering. All Rights Reserved.

Transactions of Japan Society of Kansei EngineeringJ-STAGE Advance Published Date: 2017.06.09

doi: 10.5057/ijae.IJAE-D-16-00050

International Journal of Affective EngineeringJ-STAGE Advance Published Date: 2017.06.09

doi: 10.5057/ijae.IJAE-D-16-00050

1. INTRODUCTION

Style which can be seen as the archetype of fashion,

started since the middle of the 14th century in Europe and

it has been continually changing since then [1]. Nowadays,

fashion forms large industry. Various sizes of apparel

companies such as traditional luxury fashion brands,

mass-produced and widely sold fashion brands, are

proposing new clothing one after another. Color is one of

the keys to drive sales of products for these apparel brands

and companies. The consumer has become accustomed

to a wide range of inspirational color choices, thus select-

ing the right colors to satisfy the customer is important.

Various kinds of color forecasting methodologies have

been proposed [2, 3]. One important component of the

color forecaster’ methodology is to study the designer

Ready-to-Wear Collections. In fact, the collections always

draw the attention on small apparel companies and fast

fashion retailers, especially the collections holding by

luxury brands twice a year in international fashion cities

such as London, Paris, Milan, New York and Tokyo. These

collections usually have a special theme, and show brands’

new clothing for the coming season. Through the presen-

tations, luxury brands act as a leader of shape and color of

fashion, and have a great influence on apparel industry

and our fashion life.

This study focused on the clothing color of representa-

tive luxury brands, investigated and analyzed the

frequency and change of color used between 2006 and

2015. We aimed to clarify the individual and common

color features of the luxury brands. Furthermore, results

of analysis were compared with the clothing color features

of three representative global fast fashion brands to clarify

their respective characteristics.

2. INVESTIGATIONS

2.1 Research targetsThis study focused on five luxury brands: Louis Vuitton,

Hermes, Gucci, Chanel and Prada, which are ranked high

in the brand value ranking of the luxury category [4].

Colors of luxury brands’ clothing were collected from

images of 20 collections: Spring/Summer (SS) Ready-to-

Wear Collection and Autumn/Winter (AW) Ready-to-Wear

Collection between 2006 and 2015, presented on the

website of American fashion magazine VOGUE [5].

2.2 MethodsThe colors were extracted using the same method as the

previous [6]. From the collected images, a representative

color area in each item in an image was extracted. Items

considered in this study were outer, inner, pants, skirt,

dresses and so on, however, accessories like scarves,

stockings, and socks were excluded. Therefore, there were

more than one item in most of the images. Some items had

complicated pattern (more than one main colors), thus

a representative color of such item was not identified as

a color sample. The color samples were measured by

using a color measurement software Feelimage Analyzer

(Viva Computer Inc.), quantized the colors in terms of

CIELAB values [7] and JCC40 [8].

The total number of the collected color samples was

7587 including 1492 from Louis Vuitton, 1699 from

Received: 2016.12.16 / Accepted: 2017.04.12

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Color Feature of Luxury Brand Clothing, and its Change in Recent 10 Years

Qian XIONG, Saori KITAGUCHI and Tetsuya SATO

Kyoto Institute of Technology, Matsugasaki, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8585, Japan

Abstract: This paper investigated and analyzed the distribution, frequency and transformation of clothing color of five representative luxury brands (Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Gucci, Chanel and Prada), through measuring the color of digital pictures of Ready-to-Wear Collections held from 2006 to 2015. Color features of each brand and in common were discussed and summarized. They were also compared with fast fashion brands to understand the similarities and differences in color between these two different fashion styles. As a result, luxury brands tended to use more vivid and bright colors in the spring-summer seasons, and more dull and dark colors in the autumn-winter seasons. These tendencies were similar to fast fashion brands. However, the color changes of luxury brands between two seasons were larger than those of fast fashion brands. Different characteristics of color selections and changes were also found between luxury brands.

Keywords: Luxury brand, Clothing color, Fashion week, Ready-to-Wear Collection

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Hermes, 1213 from Gucci, 2040 from Chanel, and 1143

from Prada. Table 1 shows the number of the samples

collected from each brand of each collection.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

3.1.1 Color distributions of the five luxury brandsFigures 1 and 2 show the results of color samples

plotted on the a*b* and L*C* coordinate system of

CIELAB color space respectively, to investigate the hue,

chroma, and lightness distributions of the five luxury

brands.

1) Louis Vuitton:The colors used by Louis Vuitton were centered on the

red-yellow direction, and a small area of purple as shown

in the a*b* coordinate system in Figure 1. The colors used

in the SS season were distributed in larger area comparing

with the color distribution of the AW season. Figure 2

shows that a large number of the colors used in the SS

season distributed in the areas of the high-chroma and

high-lightness, particularly yellow, and also the medium-

chroma areas of blue and red. When it turned to the AW

season, the bright yellow colors and the colors with

medium-chroma used in the SS season were clearly

reduced and the more dull colors appeared.

2) Hermes:Hermes colors were densely distributed on the orange-

yellow area. The medium-chroma and low-chroma brown

were largely used. Hermes is famous for using leather in

their products of a long term, and also uses leather in their

clothing collections. Therefore, the brownish color of the

leather increased the proportion of the usage of brown.

3) Gucci:Gucci used a large number of red and blue colors of

various chroma, moreover they also had obvious prefer-

ences at the green direction, especially the high-lightness

green and bluish green colors in the SS season, as well as

the high-chroma blue.

4) Chanel:The colors used by Chanel were distributed relatively in a

small area, and were mainly concentrated at the low-chroma

and achromatic color areas. Furthermore, the red colors

with various chroma and lightness were heavily used in the

SS and AW seasons. Color combination of black and white

is a consistent style of Chanel since its inception. As Coco

Chanel said, ‘Black holds everything. White also. They are

absolutely beautiful. It’s the perfect harmony’ [9]. Chanel

created a unique simplicity and elegance among interna-

tional fashion industry using the classic black and white,

meanwhile adding the fashion colors of modern society.

Table 1: The number of measured and unmeasured color samples

Time

Brands

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

SS AW SS AW SS AW SS AW SS AW SS AW SS AW SS AW SS AW SS AW

LouisVuitton

Collected 82 86 85 91 116 83 98 103 113 93 83 101 80 94 88 77 72 96 80 84

Removed 10 1 7 3 25 0 9 15 43 20 23 9 32 24 10 7 14 14 23 24

Measured 72 85 78 88 91 83 89 88 70 73 60 92 48 70 78 70 58 82 57 60

Hermes

Collected 112 110 114 124 99 92 84 85 103 105 103 86 77 92 69 82 73 80 56 72

Removed 6 0 8 4 1 5 5 5 7 10 3 5 7 10 17 4 9 6 7 0

Measured 106 110 106 120 98 87 79 80 96 95 100 81 70 82 52 78 64 74 49 72

Gucci

Collected 67 64 58 68 92 94 84 85 75 80 80 85 77 86 63 78 66 59 64 71

Removed 20 6 10 4 21 21 22 8 9 10 1 7 27 12 17 23 28 7 17 13

Measured 47 58 48 64 71 73 62 77 66 70 79 78 50 74 46 55 38 52 47 58

Chanel

Collected 127 81 122 96 105 86 115 104 116 113 144 149 128 161 127 133 142 147 158 185

Removed 30 7 12 19 13 6 16 3 15 15 33 19 25 24 29 33 54 47 50 49

Measured 97 74 110 77 92 80 99 101 101 98 111 130 103 137 98 100 88 100 108 136

Prada

Collected 62 84 64 74 68 62 66 59 56 62 65 52 80 72 62 89 59 87 73 66

Removed 1 2 6 2 12 4 6 2 13 19 17 12 19 25 0 12 18 17 16 16

Measured 61 82 58 72 56 58 60 57 43 43 48 40 61 47 62 77 41 70 57 50


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Figure 1: Color distribution on the a*b* coordinate system Figure 2: Color distribution on the L*C* coordinate system

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5) Prada:Prada tended to use the red, yellow and blue colors of

a variety of chroma, but rarely used the reddish purple.

As same as Gucci, Prada also used the brighter green and

more vivid blue-green colors than other three brands. It is

conceivable that Italian who living under the influence of

the Mediterranean environment have an enthusiastic bold

sensibility in their color selection. In addition, the high-

chroma red colors stood out in both the SS and AW

seasons.

Colors used by the five brands were particularly concen-

trated in the areas of achromatic colors, red, brown, and

blue, but not many in the green area. Generally, the SS

season had a wider color gamut than the AW season. In

the SS season, the colors were found in the high-chroma

areas of yellow, green, and blue in the a*b* coordinate

system, however these colors were disappeared or used

less in the AW season. In the L*C* coordinate system,

many colors were found in the low-chroma areas of

various lightness. It also showed that the high-chroma red

was used in both the SS and AW seasons by most of the

brands.

3.1.2 Color distributions ratio from 2006 to 2015Figure 3 shows the color distribution ratio of the five

brands in ten years between 2006 and 2015 categorized

using the JCC40 color system.

In general, the ratio of the neutral colors including ivory

and achromatic colors to the chromatic colors was almost

1:1, except Chanel which used more black and white. Louis

Vuitton, Hermes and Prada used slightly more achromatic

colors in the AW season than in the SS season. In contrast,

Gucci used more achromatic colors in the SS season.

In the achromatic colors, black was the most used color,

closing to or exceeding 50% of the achromatic colors in

each brand. More white and ivory were seen in the SS

season, and more black and dark gray were seen in the

AW season. In the chromatic colors, Louis Vuitton,

Hermes used brown colors frequently. Gucci and Prada

preferred the vivid and bright colors, especially for red,

yellow-green, green, blue hues. Chanel used much less

proportion of the chromatic colors than the others;

however used various hues and tones, particularly light

pink and dark blue.

3.2 Annual changes of the color distribution ratio of the five brands

Annual changes of the clothing colors of the five brands

between 2006 and 2015 were presented in a 100% stacked

area chart in Figure 4.

1) Louis Vuitton:As shown in diagram, the proportions of the achromatic

colors used by Louis Vuitton were decreased year by year

from 2007 in both the SS and AW seasons, however turned

around and were increased since about 2012.

Louis Vuitton used various chromatic colors in the SS

season. During 2006-2011, pink and red colors were the

majority, then yellow and blue colors were increased from

2010. The collections of 2007 and 2014 looked special,

using a great many achromatic colors. The theme of

the collection in 2007 was ‘romantic-cum-sporty’ [10],

on which a large number of ivory and white clothing

were displayed, with few vivid colors at the present. The

collection of 2014 SS season was full of black, because

this collection was the last show of Marc Jacobs, the chief

designer would leave office soon. He wanted to create an

Figure 3: Color distribution ratio of five luxury brands from 2006 to 2015


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Figure 4: Proportion change of clothing colors of luxury brands from 2006 to 2015

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image different from his usual style and to create an

impressive show.

The color changes in the AW season were relatively

smooth comparing with the SS season. Vivid red, grayish

brown and dark brown appeared in every year. After 2010,

the proportion of the dark blue became larger.

2) Hermes:The color ratio in both the SS and AW seasons changed

smoothly, without too much ups and downs. The color

selection of Hermes was more consistent than other

brands. Orange and brown were the Hermes’ main colors.

Therefore, these colors were constantly used every year

and other colors such as red, yellow and blue colors were

used as accent colors.

In the SS season of the past ten years, ivory and white

had always been the greatest proportion of their color.

During 2006-2011, the ratio of white to black was

approximately 1:1, and it changed to 3:1 after the

replacement of their chief designer in the 2011 AW

season. From 2013, the new designer used much more

bright orange and blue, bringing a strong visual impact

on us.

In the AW season of 2006-2010, brown and black were

the main colors, without greatly changes every year.

A significant change in color usage was observed in

2011, ivory, white, vivid red, bright orange, yellow

and blue colors appeared more. This could also be

the influence of the change of the designer in the 2011

AW season.

3) Gucci:The color ratio lines of Gucci went ups and downs

sharply. It means that the dominant color alternated

between the achromatic and the chromatic colors almost

every year. In achromatic colors, black had been domi-

nated. White decreased suddenly after 2013, and nearly

only black left. The tendency of the chromatic colors also

varied each year.

In the SS season, it was conspicuous that various vivid

colors were used to cause strong visual impact. In 2009, a

theme of the show was tropical islands. Then a large

number of turquoise colors and pure blue were released

and attracted people. In 2010, color selection was totally

changed. White, gray, and black became main colors.

Then, it became the extreme ratio of the achromatic colors

to the chromatic colors. In 2013, Gucci released an

impressive collection with full of vivid red, yellow, green

and blue, coordinated with white and black, maximized

the visual contrast of the color.

In the years between 2006 and 2010, the colors of the

AW season were focused on the achromatic colors, dark

red, and brown. After 2010, the colors had been diversi-

fied, such as the proportions of pink and various chroma

of green and blue were increased.

4) Chanel:Over the past ten years Chanel had a high usage of

achromatic colors, which was 80% percent on average.

Chanel also preferred to use the chromatic colors mixing

with white or gray. Pink, yellow, orange, green, purple of

light tone, and brown, yellow, green, blue of grayish tone

were used a lot, with rare vivid pure colors.

The ratio of black to white had been maintained at 1:1

in the SS season, however sometimes changed according

to their theme. After 2011, Chanel had changed the inac-

tive color image and started to use more vital colors such

as bright green and vivid blue.

Black was dominant in achromatic colors in the AW

season, with the exception of the collection in 2010 which

presented ‘an arctic scene’ [11] and lots of white clothing

released then increased the ratio of white.

5) Prada:Prada had a zigzag line which was similar to Gucci, and

also used a wide range of colors, meanwhile used many

complementary colors, which made a sharp contrast of

colors.

In the SS season, the dominant color alternated between

chromatic and achromatic colors every two or three years.

The proportion of the colors irregularly changed year by

year. Before 2010, the colors with light and dull tone were

used heavily. Since 2011, the colors began to turn brighter

and more vivid tone.

In the AW season, the achromatic colors used 50-60%,

but in the last two years, 2014 and 2015, reduced below

50%. Black dominated in the achromatic colors. White

was even not used in some years. Since 2010, the high-

chroma red, orange, blue-green and purple colors

increased, and the tone also turned to bright and eye-

catching from moderate and gentle.

It was common to all the brands that red, brown and

blue colors were used in every collection, which could be

considered as the basic chromatic colors. The similar

characteristics were found between Hermes and Chanel,

and also between Gucci and Prada. The proportion lines

of the 100% stacked area chart through ten years changed

smoothly in Hermes and Chanel. It indicates that their

color selections did not change much year on year. On the

other hand, the proportion lines went ups and downs in

Gucci and Prada, meaning their color selections changed

dramatically year on year. It can be also seen that the color

selection of luxury brands was more depended on the

designer’s idea.


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3.3 Comparison of color usage between luxury fashion and fast fashion

Figure 5 shows the clothing color distribution ratio

of the three fast fashion brands: H&M, ZARA and

UNIQLO for 2013. The clothing were categorized

into two seasons: the SS and AW seasons. The SS

season included the clothing released between Mar.

and Aug. and the AW season included the clothing

released between Sep. and Feb. according to the previous

study [6]. Figure 6 shows the data for the five luxury

brands through 2013.

From the results, the color selection of the luxury brands

was obviously fewer than the fast fashion brands. There

were clear differences between the SS and AW seasons

in the color selections of the luxury brands (Figure 6).

On the other hand, the color selection of the fast fashion

brands was similar between the SS and AW seasons

(Figure 5).

In common with these fast fashion brands, white and

bright colors are used more in the SS season and black and

dark colors are more in the AW season [6]. However, these

tendencies were not necessarily seen in the luxury brands

during the year of 2013. For example, Louis Vuitton

shown in Figure 6 had higher ratio of black in the SS

season than the AW season, also Hermes released more

dark brown in the SS season.

As it has already seen in Figure 3, the long term features of

the luxury brands were similar to the features of the fast

fashion brands in 2013 (Figure 5). The ratio of achromatic

colors mostly exceeded 50%, and the seasonal rule seemed

clearly: white was more in the SS season and black was more

in the AW season, red and brown were darker in the AW

season than the SS season. It was also found that the luxury

brands used a large number of clear bright colors with high

purity in both the SS and the AW seasons, for which colors

looked more active than the fast fashion brands.

Figure 5: Color distribution ratio of female clothing colors of fast fashion in 2013 [6]

Figure 6: Color distribution ratio of clothing colors of luxury fashion in 2013

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4. CONCLUSIONS

In this study, clothing colors of the five representative

luxury brands: Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Gucci, Chanel and

Prada, presented between 2006 and 2015 were collected,

then the characteristics of color selections and changes

were discussed. It was summarized as follows.

The color selections of each luxury fashion brand were

different. Warm colors, such as red, orange, brown and

yellow were often used by Louis Vuitton, in both the

spring-summer (SS) and the autumn-winter (AW) seasons.

Hermes used brown a lot, for using a large number of

leather in their clothing. Gucci and Prada which come

from Italy used more bright green and bluish green colors.

Chanel continued to use a high proportion of black and

white for ten years, making a strong visual contrast to

present a simple and elegance impression.

During the ten years, most brands used achromatic and

chromatic colors with the ratio of 1:1 on average, except

Chanel which makes black and white as their main color

theme, thus used achromatic colors up to 80%. In the

achromatic colors, black was the most used color.

In chromatic colors, the vivid and bright tones were used

more in the SS season, and the dull and dark tones were

used more in the AW season.

The luxury brands which held collection twice a year,

had a specific theme for each collection, so that there were

noticeable differences in the use of the colors between the

SS and AW seasons in a year. The result of annual color

changes in ten years showed that the color selections of

Hermes and Chanel did not change much year on year. On

the other hand, the color selections of Gucci and Prada

changed dramatically year on year. Louis Vuitton had

relatively similar color selection in ten years, except 2007

and 2014.

Comparing the luxury brands with the fast fashion

brands, there were some differences between the two

fashion styles in the color selections. In the fast fashion

brands, the color selection between the SS and AW

seasons of one year didn’t change too much. However,

luxury brands presenting new clothing twice a year had

clear differences between the SS and AW seasons, and

luxury brands use brighter and more vivid pink, orange,

yellow, and green, which were rarely appeared in the

fast fashion brands. Furthermore, the similarity between

the luxury brands and the fast fashion brands were that

the vivid and bright colors were more used in the SS

season than the AW season, while the dull and dark

colors were more used in the AW season than the SS

season.

This study discussed color feature of the luxury brands’

clothing presented in the recent ten years between 2006

and 2015. The comparisons between luxury brands and

also between the luxury brands and the fast fashion

brands were carried out. However, the relationship

between trend colors suggested by Intercolor was not

investigated. The trend colors were considered to have a

large influence to textile manufacture on forecasting

colors. Therefore, it is interesting that to explore the

relationships between the color selections of luxury

brands and trend colors by Intercolor.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant

Number 24220012. We thank JSPS for the fund support.

REFERENCES1. James Laver; Costume and Fashion, Thames &

Hudson world of art, Fifth Edition, p.62, 2012 (First

edition was published in 1969).

2. Kate Scully; Color Forecasting for Fashion (Portfolio

Skills), Laurence King, pp.106-135, 2012.

3. Eundeok Kim, Ann Marie Fiore, Hyejeong Kim;

Fashion Trends: Analysis and Forecasting, Berg

Publishers, pp.45-68, 2011.

4. Millward Brown; BrandZ Top 100 Global Brands:

http://www.millwardbrown.com/brandz/top-global-

brands/.

5. Fashion magazine VOGUE:

http://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/.

6. Qian XIONG, Hyojin JUNG, Saori KITAGUCHI,

Tetsuya SATO; Color Feature of Fast Fashion Brand

Outerwear on Official Online Store, International

Journal of Affective Engineering 15(1), pp.1-9, 2016.

7. Color Science Association of Japan; Handbook of

Color Science (the third edition), University of Tokyo

Press, pp.102-103, 2011.

8. JAFCA COLOR CODE 40, Japan Fashion Color

Association.

9. Daniele Bott; Chanel: Collections and Creations,

Thames & Hudson, p.68, 2007.

10. Sarah Mower; Coverage of Louis Vuitton SPRING

2007 READY-TO-WEAR:

http://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2007-

ready-to-wear/louis-vuitton/.

11. Sarah Mower; Coverage of Chanel FALL 2010

READY-TO-WEAR:

http://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2010-

ready-to-wear/chanel/.


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Qian XIONG (Non-member)Qian Xiong is a Ph.D. student at Design Engineering Department, Kyoto

Institute of Technology, with the research direction for Kansei Engineering

and Color Science. She has been researching on fashion color from her

master course in Kyoto Institute of Technology, to seek the color features

of different styles of clothing fashions and attempt to express data visually.

She is currently interested in color visual performance, color psychology,

and fashion color of clothing.

Saori KITAGUCHI (Non-member)Saori Kitaguchi is a lecturer at Kyoto Institute of Technology. She

obtained her M.Sc. at Colour & Imaging Institute in University of Derby

in 2003, and her Ph.D. at Department of Colour Science in University

of Leeds in 2008. She has been researching about modelling visual

attributes in special-effect coatings, visual and tactile senses of textile

products and color fastness evaluation, and fashion items consumer

behavior and its background.

Tetsuya SATO (Member)Tetsuya Sato is a professor at Kyoto Institute of Technology, the head

of Department of Design Engineering and Management, and the head

of International Division at the Center of Fiber and Textile Science.

He graduated from Kyoto Institute of Technology with M.Eng. degree in

Color Chemistry Post-graduate Course, and obtained his Ph.D. from

Otsuma Women’s University in 1994 with his research on colorimetric

method for assessing color fastness of textiles. Currently, his research

areas are color technology, color chemistry, and textile engineering.

color feature of luxury brand clothing, and its change in

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