Culture
“What you have is good enough. You don’t need anything butter yellow for spring.”
Butter yellow is everywhere this spring, from high-fashion runways to TikTok feeds, but not everyone is buying into the hype. Though some hail the soft pastel shade as fresh and flattering, a growing number of voices have called it out as overly commercialized and a symptom of a hyper-accelerated trend cycle fueled by social media algorithms.
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Butter yellow didn’t just appear overnight. The color had been simmering in the fashion pot for months, even if it largely went unnoticed by the general public. Timothée Chalamet wore a full butter yellow ensemble at this year’s Oscars, while Sabrina Carpenter and FKA Twigs rocked the shade at major events last year. Even major fashion houses like Gucci and Versace featured the color heavily on their recent runways.
Despite this high-fashion endorsement, backlash brewed online. On TikTok, folks quickly voiced their disdain for the color. Some questioned the aesthetic appeal, while others challenged the ethics behind fast-tracked trends.
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“You don’t need butter yellow”
TikToker @stylecrusader went viral with her blunt critique of the new fashion trend. “What you have is good enough. You don’t need anything butter yellow for spring,” she said. “None of that stuff is really gonna make you happy. Save your money.”
Her message struck a nerve. Many viewers agreed that the color, while trendy, didn’t actually look good on most people. A frequent comment on her video and others was how unflattering the color looked on “most” people. Others argued the exact opposite, pointing out that the pastel shade looks stunning on darker skin tones, while still acknowledging its limited appeal on lighter complexions.
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@gigio1373 White centered at #fyp #trending #whitewomen #karen #millennial #genz #boomer #fashiontok #colorpalette #coloranalysistok #butter #yellow #coloroftheyear #butteryellow #whosaidthat #bravo #andycohen #realhousewives #vanderpumprules ♬ original sound – Gigi
Butter yellow: victim of fashion fatigue and trend burnout?
But the debate didn’t stop at color theory. In a longer and more critical take, TikToker @smactok4 unpacked her discomfort with the trend’s rapid rise. She described her frustration at feeling pressured to buy into fleeting aesthetics.
“I remember […] opening up the New York Times with a cup of coffee and sitting down to read about the runways and seeing somebody say like, oh, butter yellow is the colour of the season or whatever. Butter yellow is everywhere. And I just remember being so angry in that moment.”
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She went on to explain that trends today move so fast that they become commodified almost instantly, at the cost of both ethical labor and genuine creativity.
“Within two days, there is a factory in the middle of who knows where where people are working for absolutely no pay and horrible conditions 24 hours a day so that you can go buy a 25-dollar version of whatever it is that some magazine told you you needed.”
@smactok4 #butteryellow #trend #style ♬ original sound – smactok
Her rant touched on a broader concern: that trend culture now favors consumption over expression. Fashion, she argued, should be about thoughtful execution, not blind adherence.
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Whether you love it or hate it, butter yellow isn’t just a color, it’s a symbol of a larger ongoing cultural divide. Some see it as fun and playful. Others see it as another fleeting, empty trend.
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