We often hear "this year's color trend is...", something like that from TV or magazines. Well, long time ago back in the Heian era, there was a color of the trend in Japan as well.
The color was called IMAYO, meaning the latest fashion. The history says that, in the late Heian, the height of KIYOMORI TAIRA's prosperity, the Emperor Go-Shirakawa loved the IMAYO color. The color was widely used for KIMONO, or layered collars for JYUNI HITOE (twelve layered KIMONO), etc., and there were even magazines on IMAYO color at that time.
As you see in the picture below, IMAYO is vermilion red which is slightly pale. In the Tale of Genji, there is a description of Prince Hikaru Genji choosing KIMONO in IMAYO color for his beloved wife Aoinoue.
Today, Navy, as the color trend of 2017 autumn/winter, attracts a lot of fashinable people's attention. In the future, someone might be saying that the IMOYO color in the late Heisei era was Navy.
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