The secret psychology of sneaker colours

New York

AQUA blue, acid lime and grape purple. Electric orange interspersed with neon pink. Grey suede and cheetah print mixed with white and gold.

These are not descriptions of a minimalist's worst nightmare, but rather new colour combinations from Adidas, Reebok and New Balance. And they are jarring by design.

In the age of the infinite scroll and the era of sneaker culture, where the competition to make the hottest, rarest, most wanted kick is more intense than ever, the shoe that clashes shades with the most force stops traffic - at least of the online kind. As a result, athletic shoe companies are increasingly becoming fluent aficionados of that old art: colour theory.

The links between colour and emotion have been studied for centuries, from Carl Jung's colour coding of personality traits to focus groups evaluating the ways in which candy colours can affect perceptions of flavour.

Drug companies colour their pills "cool" or "hot" according to desired effect, and we use seasonal affective disorder (SAD) lamps in winter to replicate the energising qualities of a sunny day.

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It is little wonder that sneaker brands have departments dedicated to manipulating minuscule shifts in shades, as well as engineering the visual equivalent of a crime scene so you rubberneck online. It is their mission to create feelings and accelerate business.

"Between 70 and 90 per cent of subconscious judgment on a product is made in a few seconds on colour alone," said Jenny Ross, head of concept design and strategy for lifestyle footwear at New Balance. "It can excite or calm us, it can raise our blood pressure. It's really powerful."

So while the bread and butter of most brands remain the basics - the Nike Air Force 1 was the bestselling sneaker of 2020, and its default is all white - the pieces that power the continued churn and buzz are the

limited-edition collectibles that tap into our subconscious to create desire. Sometimes the triggers are obvious: The use of varsity red, for example, summons up Ferris Bueller collegiate nostalgia; gold and purple call to mind a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game; and white is associated with racquet sports.

But in fashion, colour is also your brand. Fendi is yellow, Hermès is orange and Tiffany is blue. And so, sneaker brands toggle between their core colours and wild experimentation. New Balance, for example, is rooted in grey, omnipresent every season, suggestive of the urban running shoe, riffing on concrete. "Doing grey right is something we take a lot of pride in," Ms Ross said. "Every grey on our colour ring has a character and personality: castle rock is warm; steel is a blue tone. With legacy models, we make sure our tanneries never stray. They replicate with precision."

At the other end of the dial is Nike, with its neon lime "Volt" colour, first seen at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. To some it is heinous, to others a masterstroke.

"That was an intellectual and scientific choice for Nike," said Bryan Cioffi, Reebok's vice-president for footwear design. "The first colour you read in your optical receptors is that super-bright lime. It's possibly an evolutionary take from poisonous animals and signals danger . . . Nike triangulated that and repeated it forever." Repetition is how you win the colour game. You may see Volt and recoil, but you will always think "Nike". As colours go, it is a paradigm for brand marketing.

"We did a complete technology innovation study about how colour showed up on high-definition TV (HDTV) and sports tracks," said Martha Moore, a Nike vice-president and creative director. "We were studying the idea of speed and what colour complemented that in the vibration of the human eye. Volt is emotional."

After a year of living our lives almost wholly online, pixel colouration has become even more key.

"We are developing colours that appear lit from within. Pixels sitting next to one another create previously unseen colours. They create new neutrals and complex combinations. We are using complex knits of yarns, with bright spots and glows that have not been seen before," said Ms Moore.

"We are seeing a particularly positive response to dialled-up pastels and strong yellow," said Heiko Desens, global creative director of Puma. "Things that speak of energy and positivity."

Beyond the obvious, we all have complex personal relationships with colours. Grace Wales Bonner's collaborations with Adidas beautifully conjure the 1970s, in particular the style of the Jamaican communities in London during that era. For her latest sneakers, the designer said her soft colour palette was inspired by "iconic Jamaican filmmaking".

Then there is Sacai's hybrid take on Nike's VaporMax and Waffle Racer runners, which layer double swooshes in "campfire orange" on "dark iris" in what Ms Moore called "authentically sport with a futuristic visionary spin".

Not to mention the Puma Mirage Tech, which purposely clashes colours from different eras in a way that resembles the digital display on DJ hardware. "It's a remix," Puma's Mr Desens explained. "We wanted to link them to electronic music culture." NYTIMES