The Color Yellow

It’s an ode to nostalgia and warmth. Lemon slices stick to the sides of glass cups. Rubber rain boots splash into March rain. Trumpet trees bloom in Florida. The ‘pueblo magico’ of Izamal, Mexico. Mia’s dress in La La Land. Yellow, yellow, and yellow cardigans with pearl buttons and rib stitch sleeves. What exactly brings the appeal of yellow—alongside Barbie Pink (2023) and Brat Green (2024)—that will paint our spring and summer fashion? How does it play into media, fashion trends, and memories? Exploring the perspectives of content creator Samantha Labrada, students Soi Audain and Aditi Gunasekar, and others, there’s a lot to love and remember about the color yellow.

Butter Yellow

Light yellow—dubbed as butter yellow in the early 2020s—is charming for its juxtaposition. It’s subtle yet subverts white clothing as the go-to neutral color. It’s softer than sunlight yet pops out in marble kitchen and beige cafe backgrounds. It’s stylish in many settings: a garden party, coastal hike, beach swim.

The color yellow holds meaning and value. Sosi Audain, a high school junior at Georgetown Day School, said, “I have a personal association with the color yellow and I really like sunflowers—they kind of been my thing since I was young, so yellow has been one of my favorite colors for a long time.” 

“Yellow is the color of spring and fragrant forsythia, like if the month of May was a rainbow hue.” Centennial High School junior Aditi Gunasekar explained. “Yellow to me has always been a color of happiness and platonic love.” 

Content creator Samantha Labrada wrote in an interview, “Yellow to me represents a positive color, and positivity as a season to me is spring. This is mostly because one of  my favorite holidays is in spring, which is Easter!” Specializing in shabby chic fashion style and lifestyle content, Labrada is also a full-time college student.

“Faith is something I take very seriously, and I have always been a believer of Jesus Christ, and I am Christian. Jesus represents love and light and everything positive in the world. That is what yellow represents to me, and that is why yellow is spring. It is the color rebirth, resurrection and hope and love!” Labrada explained.

However, yellow has a divisive backstory. 

“Yellow is analogous with society’s outcasts and outsiders, its unwanted and persecuted, its villains and monsters. A color traditionally association with Judas Iscariot, who in Christian mythology is also considered a bit of a bad dude. In medieval Spain, they made non-Christians wear yellow. In Italy, they refer to crime stories as giallo, Italian for yellow,” journalist Felix Petty writes. “Yellow has had its moments though, in visual art, it was loved by Gauguin, Miro, Van Gogh, who all transformed this historically unloved color into something beautiful.”

Some people wondered about how yellow might not be as appealing to critics. 

“Perhaps yellow is just a bit too insistently cheerful, like those morning people who sing and bustle about while you try to burrow into your newspaper,” gardener Jason Bertkay writes. “Also, I read somewhere that yellow is the most common color for wildflowers, and its omnipresence may make it seem less desirable.”

Through the rise of butter yellow, the color has  gained a tremendous appreciation and went mainstream.

Of course, what is butter yellow but a fantastic opportunity to layer and match a feel-good outfit? Here’s where baby blue and other trending colors come to play. With Princess Polly’s Strapless Top and Garage’s Square Neckline Top, blue is yellow’s best friend: flared jeans, playful jorts, and denim skirts. Even water bottle brands like Hydro Flask, Owala, and Stanley experiment butter yellow with blues, teals, and pinks. 

“Many people think [yellow] clashes too much with either their hair or skin color, but I have yet to see someone who looks bad in yellow,” Labrada wrote. “I think yellow looks the absolute best with baby pink and white.”

“I think [yellow] goes naturally with other warm colors: orange or red, brown on sunflower greens, certain greens with yellow look nice,” Audain said. “I associate yellow naturally with sunflowers; also the summer because the sun is yellow. There are daisies and dandelions, but when they’re yellow, you know before they turn white and puffy.”

“Though I personally consider my sense of style eccentric, I’ve come to appreciate yellow with darker shades such as brown but also find that it pairs well with shades of cream, baby pink, and other soft pastel colors,” Gunasekar said.

As a delicate accent, butter yellow also styles glamour, adding a finishing touch for a perfect outfit: necklaces, scarves and flip flops. Choosing from a variety of textures—silk blouses, cashmere sweaters, satin dresses—people can find freedom and individuality by mixing and matching different colors and clothing. “I kind of tend to do my own thing [with fashion], but in terms of clothing and accessories… I’m a huge fan of a dress with pants like jeans or just slightly baggy pants,” Audain said. “I think that it adds dimension and it really plays with layering: if you wear a pair of pants and then a dress on top and then even a shirt on top of that, you have three different layers going on. I love a layered look; they were popular during the 90s and 2000s.”

Shabby Chic 

In Altar’d State’s Everyday Seamless Eyelet Top and Hollister’s Crochet-Style Tie-Front Sweater Tank, yellow is a hidden powerhouse to the shabby chic aesthetic. Although dominated by pink and white tones, shabby chic—originally an interior design style known for its faded pastel and Rococo draw—also incorporates  yellow lace and bow. 

 Shabby chic, with its feminine motifs of flowers and hearts, romanticizes the small touches in home decor and fashion. Whether found on throw pillows or casual dresses, the yellow in Aeropostale’s Floral Sweetheart Open Back Maxi Dress and Jessy Floral Babydoll Dress dances through puff sleeves and flowing skirts.

Labrada explains the rewarding experience of showcasing the shabby chic aesthetic through social media. 

“Talking to a camera has always been something I have had an interest for. I constantly wanted to tell the world and people who followed me about my hobbies and things I enjoyed,” she wrote. “Now that I have a small platform on TikTok, I have been able to showcase my favorite patterns and colors to the world and create a judgment-free zone for everyone.”

Creating an online safe space, Labrada reflects on how exploring the shabby chic aesthetic gave her a deeper love of community and fashion. 

“Being able to showcase all my favorite outfits to the world and my viewers allows for me to be able to find more things about my personal style and as well who I am as a person,” she wrote.  “Taking pictures of the outfits, or giving my viewers a haul of everything I have collected or bought over the months allows for me to be able to find out more about my fashion identity and how I want to dress everyday.”

On Tiktok, the shabby chic aesthetic is an emerging niche, with content creators sharing hauls, room tours and outfit-of-the-day posts—other trends  include Jellycats, ballet flats, and deer motifs. 

 With spring in full fashion, shabby chic is all about embracing the beauty of girlhood.

“I constantly find myself wanting more patterned clothing. Specifically, gingham. Something about gingham mini shorts really completes a summery outfit in my opinion,” Labrada wrote. “Overall, I also find myself constantly returning to flowery, pastel patterns. Businesses like Djerf Avenue are a good example of having many flowery and shabby chic items!”

Original shabby chic designer Rachel Ashwell mentions in an interview about how her sister collected antiques and dresses from the Victorian period in her childhood. 

Hoping to capture this nostalgia through her interior designs, Ashwell said, “In the day to day a prom dress wistfully left at the end of a bed or nonchalantly hanging over a wardrobe door is a glimpse of a day dream, as you say, a reminder of the pretty, precious and futile magical days we experience.”

Fashion Influences and Predictions

As for butter yellow, it’s still in style for the future of fashion. From New York Fashion Week to viral social media posts, butter yellow emerged as a graceful and honeyed hue. 

However, butter yellow cannot exist without recognizing similar shades that gained traction in the media—shaping yellow into a color of cultural resonance. Specifically, before butter yellow, Gen Z Yellow—a brighter shade of butter yellow—became known for its confident and original personality in 2017. Additionally, banana milk yellow held the spotlight in 2023 for its association to Korean Banana Flavored Milk and Asian culture. 

“When I hear butter I think of croissants, galettes, pies, shortbread. French and European things,” fashion and culture writer Viv Chen writes. “When I hear banana milk I think of HMart, Ranch99, steamed egg, spongy cakes and custard buns at Paris Baguette.” 

Butter yellow is likely to remain popular in mall stores and runway shows through 2025 , evolving with new trends and colors. It cheers up an exciting year of fashion.

“In 2025, I believe that trends will take on a more airy and vibrant feel, with colorful and notable aspects from the 90s,” Gunasekar said.

“In terms of predictions for spring 2025, I’m expecting brighter colors,” Audain said. “I’m not really involved in fashion trends, but if I had to guess, Brandy Melville tank tops will probably make it come back when it gets warmer—dainty floral outfits or dainty floral Brandy Melville tops.”

“I predict for spring and summer 2025 many many pastel and neutral colors,” Labrada said. “I predict classy outfits, with femininity—with the addition of cute head accessories like hair clips, head bands or even ribbon! I predict so much ribbon. Ribbon in everything!”

Written by Chelsea Zhu of Richard Montgomery High School

Photo Courtesy of Pinterest