Poppy Red

Poppy red is taken from the poppies that grew tenaciously on the WWI battlefields of Flanders. Lt. Col. John McCrae, a military doctor, seeing red flowers swaying amidst post-battle devastation, wrote the poem 'In Flanders Fields'. From then on, this orange-toned red poppy became the solemn English-speaking world symbol for commemorating fallen soldiers.

The poppy's scarlet red was already used as a symbol for Ceres, the harvest goddess, in Greco-Roman times. Poppies bloomed like wildfire across Mediterranean grain fields, which ancients mistakenly believed was red divine power granted by the grain god to ensure a bountiful harvest.

In the East, particularly during the Tang and Five Dynasties periods, poppy red frequently appeared in bird-and-flower paintings and frontier poetry. The poet Li Yu lamented in his death verse, 'How much sorrow can one man have? Just like a river of spring water flowing east,' with the poem's title 'Poppy' signifying a poignant splash of blood-red drifting in turbulent times.

19th-century Impressionist master Monet was deeply enamored with poppy fields. In his famous painting 'Poppy Field', he used scattered dots of pure vermilion applied casually, creating a dynamic effect of flowers swaying in the wind among the grass, defining this red as a pastoral idyll under the warm afternoon sun.

Today, on Remembrance Day in the UK and Commonwealth nations, wearing a poppy lapel pin has become a cultural norm. It is not just a remnant of WWI memory, but has evolved into a universal value of reflecting on war and cherishing peace, and in contemporary fashion, into an aesthetic of fearless wild beauty.