🔥purple is the new brown in Korea this fall: the piece I'd buy and the one I'd skip

For years my autumn wardrobe has been brown knit, grey coat, done. This season Korean fashion pages keep telling me the same thing from two directions. W Korea says purple knitwear is now picked as often as the brown knit that used to be the autumn formula, and ELLE Korea says purple has moved from sweaters down to shoes.

This try-on of COS's autumn pieces calls it purple-core (퍼플코어), and it's close to 100k views, so the colour clearly isn't staying on the runway. The one I'd buy is a dark, quiet purple knit. W Korea's best example is a minimalist who almost never wears colour: she chose a deep purple and made everything else black, leather coat, skirt, flats. That's the version I can see myself in after a night shift, purple doing the talking and black keeping it calm. The one I'd skip is purple shoes. ELLE lists lilac patent ballet flats, purple satin kitten heels and plum sneakers, and I understand the idea that one pair of shoes can wake up a plain outfit. But shoes are the thing I wear until they fall apart, and I don't trust a trend colour to still feel right in three winters. Brown and black have earned that spot. So this autumn I'm getting exactly one purple thing, and it's going on my upper half.