The 5 Paintbox Brights Taking Over Our Summer 2021 Wardrobe

last updated 7 June 2021

In Who What Wear's spring/summer 2021 trend report, editor Emma Spedding cited "the joy of getting dressed" as a key mood for the season ahead. The sentiment was echoed by MatchesFashion's fashion and buying director, Natalie Kingham, who, in the platform's own S/S 21 report, referenced the role of colour in the summer runway collections.

"If there is one thing that has made me smile, it has been seeing bright bursts of colour on Zoom calls. Many designers worked with a bold palette for spring, including some brilliant day dresses by Valentino, which will translate well however you want to wear them," she explained. "We also saw bright colour via tie-dye at The Elder Statesman, and even the humble Ugg was updated by Molly Goddard in rich green, red and orange."

This particular aesthetic has been trickling slowly but surely into the new-in sections of high-end and high-street brands alike and in turn into the feeds of Instagram's best dressed. As I was scrolling through the increasingly rainbow-hued feeds, it dawned on me how much the colour spectrum on display resembled the saturated tones of a paintbox. This is far from the soft sage and mellow yellow that we've seen in recent seasons. Rather, this is the sort of in-your-face pigment you'd expect to see in a child's painting. It's joyful, unabashed and very much in line with the roaring '20s aesthetic that has been forecast to dominate fashion over the next few years.

From pea green and ultramarine blue to zesty orange and fuchsia pink, scroll down to see the paintbox brights that are set to take over our wardrobes for the remainder of 2021. This is feel-good fashion at its best.