This article is taken from the June 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £25.
“Betts, mate, are you psychic?” people often ask. To which I am obliged to answer: “Oh, yes, soz. Totes psychic. Journalistically useful but otherwise a bit of an arse. Also beware men named ‘Simon’.” And so it has come to pass with olo.
“Olo?” I hear you ask. “What, pray, is olo?” This, friends, is that new colour that’s been discovered to exist but also kind of doesn’t. A posse of scientists from UC Berkeley and the University of Washington fired laser pulses from a device called “Oz” into their eyes and saw some weird shit.
The weirdest was a super-saturated blue-green shade they’re calling “olo”, but other science types dismiss as very much “ota” (open to argument). Meanwhile, we lay individuals might adopt a middle ground consisting of the reaction: “Turquoise. You’re talking about turquoise.”
The word “turquoise” derives from the word for “Turkish,” once the mineral’s main entry point to Europe. One of the first gems to be mined, turquoise has been found in prehistoric objects in Spain.
Later evidence occurs in ancient Egypt, China and Iran, where it was named “pērōzah”, meaning “victory”. In Persian architecture, turquoise was used to adorn palace domes because its spooky blueness was understood as a symbol of earthly paradise.
Successive cultures have regarded this older olo as holy, lucky, and/or good vibe-bestowing, be it in ancient Egyptian grave décor, ancient Persian talismans or as the iris in evil-eye amulets. Perhaps this was why Partridgesque sports commentator David Icke make it his thang when anointing himself as the son of God in the early Nineties.
Or maybe there was simply an excess of green-blue shell-suits knocking about. Either way, his claim that the colour was a conduit for positive energy was the least contentious of arguments that eventually saw him becoming a not-so-neo-Nazi, in the way that everybody does these days.
Concerning my own mystical anticipation of 2025 constituting olo ground zero, as 2024 dragged itself to an end, I found myself thinking: “Turquoise, I must have turquoise! January will mark the onset of my bluey green era.”
For, as the Japanese boast 72 kō, or micro-seasons a year, so the Betts existence has moved through colours. As a four-year-old, asked to select the hue of my polyester bed linen, I chose brown because this was the Seventies, and brown was all we had.
Later, I pretended my favourite shade was red because I wanted to be perceived as dynamic. In mourning for my life, it had to be black, before true moi blossomed forth in the form of fuchsia, then emerald.
Finally over my school uniform at 50, I’m all about blue hues — ice, Titian, electric, morphing into cornflower, purple, lilac. Until, now, finally, turquoise. Or, you know, olo.
The thing is with turq/olo is that it isn’t always rendered accurately photographically, meaning it’s tricky to buy online without ending up with faded blue or grubby teal (ruling out non-returnable Vinted). There also isn’t much about, whilst the cheap stuff can look a tad Per Una. (Mango boasts a lamentably unpleasant suit.)
You often find it lurking under other aliases: aqua, cerulean, azure. Me & Em boasts turquoise passing as “our signature Topaz Blue”, namely a Silk, Wide-leg Trouser (£395, meandem.com) so vast it will dwarf when teamed with the recommended Silk Over-size Shirt (£295). Opt for the Silk Halterneck Top + Tie (£195), or Soft-Touch Cotton Rib Knit Tee (£115) instead. Or offset with white, purplish fuchsia or not-so-mellow yellow.
Essentiel Antwerp is worth a look, being colour fixated. Whistles has a bit, ditto M&S and H&M. However, the beauteous motherlode is the ever-coruscating NRBY.
The brand’s founder, Jo Hooper, rhapsodises: “If friends want to give me a present, they always choose it in turquoise. It’s such an optimistic, uplifting colour: the most perfect summer sea or summer sky. It yields images of faraway places, whilst also being calming and soothing.”
I am besotted by olo’s appearance in NRBY’s winning S/S25 tile print, a collaboration with designer Tracey Boyd, available as the Tavira Silk Tile Print Shirt (£175, nrbyclothing.com) and Thea Silk Tile Print Trouser (£175) combo, or Portia Silk Tiered Tile Print Maxi Dress (£325).
However, I heart it most in NRBY’s viral Sintra Silk Hand-Painted Tile Print Dress (£325), the world’s most perfect pool-to-party piece. There’s also a bright turq shirt, a mildmaidy olo frock, turquoise pullovers, t-shirts and tiny rocks. Plus, you won’t need to nuke your eyeballs to see it.
Hannah Betts writes at hannahbetts.substack.com
