Colour Me: Cherry Red

Welcome back to Colour Me, Crowd’s content series using semiotics to decode colour trends and unpack cultural shifts. Picking up where Heritage Purple left off, the third instalment of Colour Me charts the evolution of Cherry Red – the most symbolically-laden fruits in the cultural lexicon – and how it captures the changing representations of girl, woman and other.  

Cherry Red stepped out late last year, tantalising and luscious – the perfect shade to chime with a time of renegotiating attitudes towards femininity (the good, the bad, the political).  

We saw a whole host of ‘girl’ related trends, from ‘girl dinner’ to ‘girl math’, ballet-core to coquette-core, Sandy Liang’s culture-defining bows and Taylor Swift as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. Pantone even chose an ‘empowering’ red – ‘Viva Magenta’ – as its Colour of the Year. Brands are launching cherry perfumes as far as the eye can see. The preoccupation with femininity was palpable.  We also saw the controversial “tradwife” movement go viral – centering on female influencers who choose to embody traditional gender roles. 

As the full spectrum of femininity is playing out in culture, we see motifs of desire, power and hunger channelled through the prism of the delicate, fierce and luscious Cherry Red.  

Dominantly, Cherry Red evokes soft, palatable femininity. These representations draw on retro visual cues that denote girlishness with women as curated perfection: to be gazed at, admired – but not touched. Femininity is ornamental. It is coquettish, but never confronting. Cherry Red offers a view of womanhood that tiptoes into fantasy.  

We see hyper-curated, posed visuals – meticulously arranged, perfect and aspirational. While poses range from the illusion of candour (Sabrina Carpenter for Jacquemus, “Trad wife” influencer Nara Smith, Susmie’s) or rigid postures conveying empowerment (Balenciaga, Rhode, Jordan Chiles) – all are positioned to present a fantasy of womanhood, leaning into traditional archetypes – from youthful ‘Lolitas’ (Skims, Jacquemus) to guileless schoolgirls (Shushu Tong, Miu Miu). 

We also see models without heads, faces or hands (Sandy Liang, Hennessy, Gourmand Beauty, Hestia), or merely with the top half of the body (Nara Smith, Gorgie). Some brands even use a mere representation of a body part (831 Stories, Sabrina Carpenter’s kiss marks). It is presenting fragments of the female subject, not her whole body – depriving her of her wholeness. A woman is no more than a pair of hands, a body without a face, lips – in other words, an object. 

Meanwhile, Balenciaga, Hennessy, Gorgie and Skims’ styling is redolent of the 1950s – an era synonymous with a very narrow, very idealised view of womanhood – and one that is now being relived through the “Trad wife” movement. With these fantasies of trad womanhood, Cherry Red expresses femininity that is palatable and sanitised in its perfection. It’s posed and static, as if frozen in time.  

This sense of femininity-as-ornament carries through in language, too, with cues that draw in the voyeur (the problematic male gaze)  – “Crowd Pleaser” (Jordan Chiles), “I’m only here for your entertainment” (The Last Dinner Party), “what’s your drink order?” (Nara Smith).  

Dominantly Cherry Red operates along a spectrum from innocence to sensuality, keeping womanhood within familiar fantasies.  

If dominant articulations lean into conventional tropes of femininity, emergently Cherry Red goes in the other direction. The shade revels in the messy glory of expression and disruption, liberating women from the confines of prettiness. Emergently Cherry Red is subversive and unapologetic, where dominantly it is palatable and delicate.  

Here we see Cherry Red lean into intentionally messy and confrontational visual codes. Models strike uncomfortable poses, contorting their bodies (Ganni, Gentle Monster) or even truncating them (Fancì Club). The models defiantly hold the external gaze, never yielding to it (Acne Studios, Perfect, Fancì Club, KVK, Filippo Sorcinelli) as empowered subjects.   

Harsh, dramatic lighting lends these visuals a certain severity, unlike the dominant space’s softness. Cherry Red appears in food images as overripe and messy – the kind that stains, drips, spills (Yoni, Single and Fat, Simp Wine, Perfect, Bompas & Parr). It borders on sinister (Bompas & Parr, Filippo Sorcinelli), even masquerading as something other than food (Yves Saint Laurent, Bompas & Parr), while Suki Waterhouse’s album visuals – bathed in red – feature a spider emerging from her mouth.  

Cherry Red evokes danger. Imagery features spikes, harsh lines and dark backgrounds designed to unsettle (Acne Studios, Harper’s Bazaar). Filippo Sorcinelli refers to his ‘violent fragrance’ that is a celebration of love. Nasomatto describes their fragrance ‘Duro’ (‘hard’) as ‘CONTAINED TESTOSTERONE’ –  evoking male aggression alongside visuals featuring chains, reminiscent of bondage. Isamaya features a phallic lipstick being applied to the model’s Cherry Red lips, illicit and shocking.  

Cherry Red also embraces taboo. Filippo Sorcinelli references cannibalism in both language and visuals for his fragrance. Bompas & Parr present an anatomical heart on a plate: carnal, visceral, undoubtedly taboo, while Nanis Jewels depict the female form using only the marks of sweat on a deck chair and feminine care brand Yoni alludes to menstrual blood with red juice-stained fingers.  

Emergent Cherry Red is subversive and unsettling. It allows brands to capitalise on its conventional associations with disruptive effect by tapping into the colour’s carnal, dangerous, and symbolic origins.  

With its dual symbolism of seduction and sustenance, of softness and hardness, Cherry Red can wield great power in brand comms. Here’s how to leverage Cherry Red to your advantage: 

Do tap into Cherry Red’s conventional territories – danger, sex, rebellion – to lean into more disruptive and confronting aesthetics that hold consumers’ attention.  

Don’t use Cherry Red in a way that fragments and subjugates the female subject if your goal is to achieve lasting cultural relevance.  

Do use Cherry Red to code empowerment and defiance, turning associations with softness and femininity on their head to create a more powerful visual impact.  

Do dial down visuals that rely on aspiration and perfection in a culture where what feels genuine holds far more cultural cachet. 

In a culture increasingly defined by extremes, we see Cherry Red as a vehicle for what is extreme – dangerous, unsettling, un-pretty. And as it spans the dominant and emergent spaces, it seems Cherry Red is giving colour to a society careening between ideas of what it means to be female, of agency and control. 

Ever subject to the ebb and flow of culture, we predict Cherry Red will swing towards more subversive expressions as the tension between liberalism and conservatism continues. We envision Cherry Red, a shade charged with significance, continuing to embrace taboo with transgressive intent. Cherry Red will go beyond codifying the rigid archetypes of womanhood, doubling down on viscerally un-pretty representations in the pursuit of radical expression.