Off-White: Through the Lens of Coconut Milk

Lavender? As the avant-garde ‘it’ color of spring? Groundbreaking. We think Miranda Priestly would share our sentiment.

Those looking to stock up their wardrobe with classics that are more than one-season wonders are instead rediscovering the timeless appeal of off-white. Off-white underpinned many of the runway successes at the Spring 2018 New York Fashion Week; from pink-toned art-inspired off-white prints by Akris to cream colored trenches by Nina Ricci, off-white proved to be an understated mainstay.

And yet, what exactly is off-white? If you managed to catch Virgil Abloh, founder and creative director of the aptly named Off-White (and, newly named artistic director for menswear at Louis Vuitton), during New York Fashion Week, he might have defined his hugely successful, Milan-based fashion label as “the grey area between black and white”. Chromatically of course that is a challenging definition. A shade of a color is derived by the addition of black and so grey is a shade of white and not really off-white. Not that we are nitpicking, of course.

But perhaps, the real association of off-white to spring is emotional and not visual. If pure white represents the sterile purity of a priest or a virgin bride, does off-white represent the inner comfort of not being held to unattainable or undesirable standards of perfection? Something almost perfect but not quite? Or is the essence captured in the color of the fading pages of a much-read and well-worn book? Where one derives comfort from the familiarity with the contents and knowledge of the ending? Or maybe, the sentiment is burnt into the color of old lace which decorates the table at your family home and which brings memories of happier times? Perhaps off-white is the emotional representation of spring borne out of comfort in knowing that the worst is over and better days are ahead. And perhaps the best culinary representation of this sentiment is in comfort foods like creamy soups, warm mashed potatoes, thick stews, savoury pies and rich curries.

Coconut milk has a large proportion of saturated fats (hence its use in comfort foods) and this is often pointed to by health-conscious eaters as a reason to avoid using it. But saturated fats typically come in three forms – short chain (6 or fewer carbon atoms), medium chain (8-10 carbon atoms) and long chain (12 or more carbon atoms) fatty acids and the saturated fats in coconut milk are primarily in the form of medium chain saturated fatty acids or MCFAs. Why does that matter?  Well there is research to suggest that the bad reputation of saturated fats in diet is primarily due to ingredients with long chain fatty acids and MCFAs, in moderation, may actually have a beneficial role to play in diets and metabolism.

So when you think about it, with its faint yellow tinge juxtaposed against the brown shell and its starring role in comfort foods, coconut milk may actually perfectly encapsulate the idea of spring in a (pardon the pun) nutshell. Perhaps that is why Pantone recommends Coconut Milk (11-0608) as the off-white color of Spring 2018. However we’d like to think that the color’s appeal lies beyond being the seasonal trend and instead, in how it makes us look and feel.