Emerald: Summer's sleeper trend

With green The moment Samantha Cameron donned a boldly hued lace tea dress by Christopher Kane for the Scottish fashion awards last week, she moved green neon from the wardrobes of teen-agers (and fans of early Madonna) into the fashion mainstream. The dress not only cemented Sam Cam’s position as Britain’s most influential fashion ambassador, but also drew attention to one of summer’s sleeper trends that is about to explode: dazzling green.
It may not be an obvious fashion colour — it’s rarely ‘in’, and retailers often consider it the hardest colour to sell — but green is having its moment.It was on Kane’s summer catwalk in laser-cut leather jackets and skirts, fellow Scott Jonathan Saunders has used leaf green in his spring/summer collection (Samantha Cameron debuted one of his pieces during President Obama’s visit last month), while Miuccia Prada has championed the colour with her emerald cotton dresses and suits.
Yet green is often considered a challenging shade to wear. It’s less showy and girly than red, purple and pink. It’s not as Everywoman as, say, a cool turquoise or inky navy. But green can be seriously sophisticated.
Consider some of this summer’s offerings: from Roland Mouret’s Forties-inspired crepe Wemmick dress to Reiss’s strapless emerald Alyssa maxi-dress, these pieces are original, elegant and seriously feminine.
Forest green was a big colour trend  at the Golden Globes earlier this year,  too — think back to Angelina Jolie’s  stunning sequin Atelier Versace emerald column or Catherine Zeta-Jones’s strapless Monique Lhuillier gown.
Emerald was also the choice of Pippa Middleton on the evening of the Royal Wedding when she wore Alice Temperley’s jewelled silk Arabia dress.
The colour looks set to be a huge trend going into autumn, too. In eveningwear it was the long, green gown that stole the show in autumn collections from Ralph Lauren to Pucci to Gucci.
So how to wear it? There are right and wrong greens. If you follow the advice of trend forecasters, darker greens such as spruce are the ones to opt for.
What you definitely want to avoid is anything the colour of a Quality Street praline triangle — or those High Street satins that make all greens look  truly garish.
And while green suits most skin tones, it looks best against lightly tanned skin — Samantha Cameron wore her Kane dress with a soft bronzy glow.