Unicorn Trend

The Unicorn Trend is a tendency to design and consume objects, clothing and food with a rainbowed and vibrant color palette, usually composed by pastel or highly saturated colors such as pink, violet, blue and green.[1] This tendency has acquired a strong popularity since 2016, especially among millennials. They rediscovered in the mythological figure of the unicorn a comeback to the childhood and a way to escape from reality. Its popularity was also due to influencers and celebrities who started to share on social networks their appreciation of the unicorn symbol as a trendy emblem through the consumption of inspired phone cases, water bottles, tote bags, makeup and food.[2]

Unicorn and rainbow pattern used as an accessory

The unicorn trend is also characterized by a visual value: the kitschy aesthetic of the modern unicorn depiction appeals to people who like posting on social networks colorful and filtered contents to get likes.

Trend development

The unicorn has had an aesthetic and commercial value for centuries. The first written reference to this kind of animals dates back to the fourth century BCE. Later on, they became popular folklore figure, symbols of chastity and purity as they were attracted by the naked breasts of virginal women.

Since the ancient Greeks, the unicorn was pictured in the mythology as an elegant beast similar to a white horse with a long and spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. The unicorn briefly appears even in the Old Testament of the Bible under the name of re’em (also reem, Hebrew: רְאֵם), making its way in the Western art and culture during the Medieval and then the Renaissance Age.[3]

Over time the unicorn was re-imagined as a toy, characterized by pastel bright colors and sparkly eyes that were popular among young girls during the 1980s.

Contemporary consumption

The physical perception of the unicorn has evolved during the years from a white, pure and elegant horse (as portrayed for example in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) to the sparkly and pink creatures of the cartoon TV series My Little Pony, becoming a trendy cultural phenomenon.[4]

The start of the trend

The health food photographer Adeline Waugh[5] unintentionally started the unicorn food trend in June 2016. As a food blogger she liked experimenting with cream cheese and natural pigments on toasts, that is how she came up with a pastel-colored cream to decorate her toasts. Her followers appreciated the experiment and started calling it “unicorn toast”. After came unicorn lattes, cakes, hot chocolate. The fad went on spreading from unicorn beauty products to pool floats. Marketers soon recognized the power of this fad and started exploiting it for commercial purposes, Starbucks for example launched a unicorn Frappuccino in 2017 and really contributed to the boom of the unicorn fad. The LGBT community also started to embrace this unicorn fever, as its typical colors reminded the ones of the community’s signature flag.

As Vaughn Scribner points out this infatuation with unicorns is not new, however, with social media it has been spreading on a much wider scale. In 2016 it became a whole cultural phenomenon. The trend expert Daniel Levine helped explaining why the unicorn mania became a fad. According to Levine three are the key points that create a fad: “an established cultural interest in something that combines with the current zeitgeist, “publicity by celebrities” and “a high visual interest that gets the attention on social media”. In the unicorn case the social media part came first, the bright pastel colors and the sparkle were a perfect fit for the Instagram language.

The way we currently use social media played a huge role in the spreading of the fad, social media like Instagram and Snapchat strongly emphasize visual culture, it’s no surprise that pastel and highly saturated colored pictures really took off on those platforms.

Part of the reason why unicorns are so loved is that they remind us of our childhood, and they help people escape from reality. Just like creatures such as vampires or werewolves were popular when times were more joyful, unicorns became popular during a time when politics and culture were dark and oppressive.

Unicorns are also connected to the millennials nostalgia, which is evident everywhere on social media platforms. The unicorn reminds millennials of their carefree and happy childhood. In 2010, the TV cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic played a big role in that, it draws on the My Little Pony franchisee of the 1980s.

The Unicorn mania can also be linked to Lisa Frank, the founder of the a school supply company called Lisa Frank Incorporated. It sold a lot of school supply and stickers characterized by colorful and neon colors. Lisa Frank, just like My Little Pony, had a strong impact on kids that are now millennials.

The Unicorn Fad

According to Google Trend, the global search of the term unicorn reached its highest point during April 2017 when Starbucks launched its Unicorn Frappuccino.[2] From August 2016 through July 2017 searches on Pinterest for unicorn food saw an increase of nearly 400%. While those for unicorn makeup reached more than 460%. On Instagram, the hashtag unicorn has amassed more than 5.9 million posts.[6] Since then, the search interest has dropped off during 2018. New fads have taken over the unicorn fever, like the mermaid trend for example.

For this reason, more than a trend it could be referred to as a fad. Even if sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably, they differ in their rise, incubation period and duration. The trend rises slowly and is driven by a functional need, a fad is an ephemeral and emotional necessity to purchase that rises from a sudden hype towards something. Therefore, it rises as quickly as it disappears.

Subcategories of the trend

Unicorn food
Unicorn biscuits

The unicorn figure, with its colors similar to the rainbow’s hues, are used to decorate several types of food.

The Unicorn Frappuccino consisted in a purple color-changing drink with some blue tones and with a sweet and a fruity dominant taste.[7] Since then, any kind of food, from sweet to savory recipes, has started to take the shape of a pastel colored unicorn. Food bloggers, writers, YouTubers, celebrities but also ordinary people started to recreate recipes and applied them to various kind of food.  They created books, blogs, YouTube videos and websites dedicated to the reproduction and the purchase of sparkly and colorful ingredients and meals.

Different kinds of food started to be decorated  accordingly like biscuits, yogurt bowls, cakes fudges, milkshakes, cupcakes, ice-creams, marshmallows, meringues, banana breads, doughs but also some more unusual ones like popcorns, sushi, noodles, soups, sandwiches, grilled cheese, pizza.

Contrary to the popular belief that sees pastel and sparkly colors on food as very caloric and sugary, a lot of them are now obtained by natural and plant-based ingredients.

A widely used ingredient is spirulina powder, an antioxidant and an anti-inflammatory substance, full of vitamins, from which you obtain the light blue color.

Many colors are also obtained from fruits and vegetables, for example the beet juice to create pink, frozen dried blueberry powder or red cabbage leaves to obtain purple and blue, and again yellow and orange from the root of turmeric.[8]

Unicorn beauty

Unicorn beauty involves the use of pastel colors (soft pink, green, blue and lavender), holographic shades, glitters and unicorn horn-shaped objects for makeup, nail art and hairstyling.

It is believed that the trend entered the beauty industry around 2008[9] when an online vegan and cruelty-free brand for makeup and hair colour (Lime Crime) was founded and used the tagline “Makeup for Unicorns” to commercialize its rainbowed products. In 2014, the hair colorist and youtuber Guy Tang shared a series of photos on Instagram with a unicorn-colored hairstyle, that made him popular worldwide.

By 2017 the unicorn trend had spread into the beauty world thanks to social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest and partly overtook its counterpart, the Mermaid Trend. In the same year, Lisa Frank made a collaboration with the brand Glamour Dolls Makeup[10] and released a cruelty-free makeup collection with the packaging covered by her iconic rainbowed animal prints.

In 2018 Paris Hilton launched a skincare line, starting with the release of a limited edition rose water named “Unicorn Mist”.[11] In 2019, during the National Unicorn Day (celebrated on April 9 in the U.S.), Paris Hilton announced on social media the re-release of the sold-out product.[12]

Thanks to the popularity of this trend in this sector, products labelled as “unicorn snot” (holographic glitter body gel), “unicorn tears” (lipsticks and lip-glosses) and “unicorn essence” (serum for the skin) are offered in the market.[13]

Some beauty products related to this trend are: unicorn-inspired highlighters, eye palettes, lipsticks, nail polish, soaps, unicorn horn makeup brushes and hairstyles.

Unicorn design

The Unicorn Trend has also infected the world of design with the creation of some daily life objects and gadgets that have the appearance and the colours of unicorns. This tendency englobes pillows, sheets and bed-covers, drinking cups, flatware. One of the most popular during the past summers was the unicorn pool float, a real inflatable with the appearance of a unicorn, frequently used by teenagers on pools and beaches, and the protagonist of several users’ pictures on social networks.[14]

The Unicorn Trend has spilled over so fast and so deeply that during the Design Week 2019 in Milan, the city also decided to set up the Unicorn House for only three day. It was a real house organized by Booking.com with an internal design that reminded the mythological animal with various decorations like on stars, rainbows, magical horns, colourful clouds and pastel shades.

Furthermore, there are many other locations around the globe that follow this unicorn theme like cafés, swimming pools, amusement parks.

Unicorn fashion

Rapidly the popularity of unicorn-themed objects also reached the fashion industry. Clothes, shoes and accessories were involved, but also phone covers and tattoos. Materials such as sheer fabrics and fake fur started to be used more frequently associated with rainbow or pastel colours and unicorn images. In no time even celebrities engaged in the trend.

In 2016, the actress Margot Robbie at the premiere of the movie Suicide Squad wore an Alexander McQueen gown adorned with a gold sequin unicorn.

During the 2017 Milan Fashion Week, Moschino unveiled a capsule collection in collaboration with the 80’s children toy brand “My Little Pony”.[15] Models were parading on the runway clothed with bubble-gum pink and baby blue looks displaying the toys’ graphic.

During the 2018 Paris Fashion Week, the American designer Thom Browne ended his show with a model walking out on the runway having a unicorn on leash. The unicorn consisted of two male models wearing an elaborate white tulle costume coordinated with the look of the model[16]

See also

References
  1. Abad-Santos, Alex. “The Inescapable Unicorn Trend, Explained”, Vox, 17th May 2017
  2. Thompson, Rachel. “The Unicorn Trend is no Longer a Rarity. Can We Please Call Time on It?” , Mashable, 07 July 2017
  3. "Unicorn." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 17 December 2010.
  4. Fisher, Alice. “Why the unicorn has become the emblem of our times”, The Guardian, 15 October 2017.
  5. Davis, Arianna. “What’s Really Behind Unicorn Fever”, Refinery29, 8th May 2017
  6. Jensen, Erin. “Unicorns: We’ve Official Reached Peak Unicron Trend. But Is It Here to Stay?”, USA Today, 15 December 2019.
  7. “Starbucks Weaves its Magic with New Color and Flavor Changing Unicorn Frappuccino”, Starbucks Stories & News, 18 April 2017.
  8. “Why (Healthy) Unicorn Food Is Everywhere”, Shape.
  9. Unique, Elisa. “For Millennials, the Unicorn Has a Much Deeper Meaning”, Odyssey, 27 November 2017
  10. Sciarretto, Amy. “What’s in Glamour Dolls’ Lisa Frank Makeup Collection? Your Inner ‘90s Kid Will Be Stoked”, 03 November 2017
  11. Mandell, Janna. “Paris Hilton Launches Skincare Line with Unicorn Mist; Cue Shocked Face”, Forbes, 30 November 2017.
  12. Trivedi, Sachin. “Paris Hilton Celebrates National Unicorn Day by Re-Releasing Sold Out Product”, International Business Times, 02 October 2019.
  13. Wischhover, Cheryl. “How Did ‘Unicorn’ Become Beauty’s Goal Aesthetic?”, Racked, 20 May 2017
  14. Mason, Melissa. “These Extremely Portly 6-Person Pool Floats Are Demonic & Must Be Eliminated”, Pedestrian, 13 March 2018.
  15. “Moschino Launches Nostalgic My Little Pony Collection”, Harper’s Bazaar UK, 22 September 2017
  16. G. Muller, Marissa. “Thom Browne Takes the Unicorn Trend to a New Peak with His Spring 2018 Show in Paris”, W Magazine, 03 october 2017
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