El­sa Wrench

My fash­ion for­ward friend and me­dia maven Judette Cow­ard showed up for our lunch date in a black and white eye­let romper, and red high heels with a splat­ter­ing of se­quins on the tips.On point, as usu­al, she has 2016 in the shop­ping bag. Rompers, jump­suits, and de­spite my best ef­forts, cu­lottes, are still hot and trendy.

Ex­cept that the ex­perts say 'trends' are so last year. Now it is more about 'moods' and cel­e­brat­ing in­di­vid­u­al­i­ty, di­ver­si­ty and eth­nic­i­ty. I al­ways chuck­le when fash­ion preach­es in­di­vid­u­al­i­ty be­cause the in­di­vid­u­als we all want to be are su­per­hu­mans like Be­y­once and Lupi­ta N'yon­go. Still, with the pop­u­lar­i­ty of so­cial me­dia, the or­di­nary girl in the striped pa­ja­ma pants and cropped top can have more of a voice than be­fore.

Chioma Nna­di, the ed­i­tor of vogue.com, who looks as un­con­ven­tion­al and won­der­ful as her name sug­gests, with her big, bold hair, says the per­son­al point of view has be­come so much more preva­lent. Every­one has an opin­ion, and by God and In­sta­gram, they mean to have their say, in cap­i­tal let­ters.

The lat­est fash­ion fore­cast from Chioma pre­pares us for "ath­leisure" which is ath­let­ic wear which you can wear to lunch with Hillary Clin­ton or your best girl­friends. No, this is not li­cence to grunge around in stinky sneak­ers and grand­ma's velour track suit. This is sleek, sexy stuff that you style up with great an­kle boots and well-con­struct­ed leather hand­bags. The ev­i­dence is in: Be­y­once is launch­ing an ac­tive street wear line even as we shriek.

Pa­perbag-waist loose trousers are mak­ing a Katharine Hep­burn come­back. But how many peo­ple have the height and pres­ence of the grand la­dy to pull off that ex­tra poof at the waist­line and stride by in so much vol­ume with­out look­ing as if they shrunk in the dry­er?But the fash­ion news which has me dri­ving spikes in­to my tem­ples has to do with colour.

Look for things in for sub­dued pinks and light blues. Why? Be­cause Pan­tone, which sets colour trends, de­clared the 2016 Colours of the Year to be rose quartz and seren­i­ty, which are the sort of shades you would as­so­ciate with brides­maids, high school grad­u­ates, and the Queen.

Rose quartz is de­scribed as a "bud­ding flower" or "serene sun­set" or a "flushed cheek." Seren­i­ty blue is "weight­less and airy," pro­vid­ing respite in tur­bu­lent times.

"Colours this sea­son trans­port us to a hap­pi­er, sun­nier place where we feel free to ex­press a wit­ti­er ver­sion of our re­al selves," chirps Leatrice Eise­man, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Pan­tone Col­or In­sti­tute�, which is head­quar­tered in New Jer­sey, USA.

A wit­ti­er ver­sion of our­selves? How clever can we be look­ing like sor­bet?

Oth­er top picks in­clude a mar­itime-in­spired snorkel blue, but­ter­cup, peach echo, and lilac gray. The New Year colours are sup­posed to be calm­ing and sooth­ing, pay­ing homage to Na­ture and awak­en­ing a sense of re­flec­tion and mind­ful­ness. Phras­es such as 'play­ful es­capism' and 'dis­con­nect from tech­nol­o­gy' are be­ing laced through the con­ver­sa­tions on colour.

Sounds like a yo­ga spa com­mer­cial to me, and, while calm and nos­tal­gia have their at­trac­tion, I pre­fer to stomp con­fi­dent­ly through 2016 rather than skip girl­ish­ly through a mead­ow.If you don't hear from me, I will be hid­ing in the in­sane asy­lum un­til this colour mad­ness blows over.

Re­ces­sion is no time for re­treat, es­capism, and lilac gray, which be­longs in the clos­et of every lit­tle old la­dy who re­mem­bers hav­ing to wear gloves to church. Bring out the bold tan­ger­ine and or­ange, the flam­boy­ant reds, the mar­vel­lous in­di­gos, the rich cof­fee and soul­ful co­coa, and the take-no-pris­on­ers char­coal, emer­ald and shut-up yel­lows.

Pan­tone can put on the chill fac­tor all it wants. I will be keep­ing things hot.

What's your fash­ion fore­cast?

Tell me at wrenchel­sa@hot­mail.com