Bon Iver and Pantone Launch Official ‘fABLE Salmon’ Hue

Photo credit: Graham Tolbert

Bon Iver’s launch for the album ‘SABLE, fABLE’ was drenched in a warm pinky hue most reminiscent of salmon flesh. That salmon wasn’t metaphorical or abstract and soon made its way into images appearing all over cities and social media. The album itself made use of the colour to envelop a black ‘sable’ square, denoting two distinct moods of the songs within and a new phase for Justin Vernon, the artist behind Bon Iver. The sable part is melancholy and wistful, perhaps the sound most often associated with the Bon Iver project; the other, salmon, a joyful embrace of change and future’s uncertainty.

Now, through an official partnership with Pantone, that colour is available for all.

​Photo credit: Graham Tolbert​

The collaboration follows an unusual promotional campaign from the typically reclusive artist, like partnerships to produce home fragrance, notebooks, tinned fish, bagels, and luxury apparel alongside a series of events.

Why ‘salmon’? It’s a colour Justin has long held positive associations with. “I’ve always thought about how, underneath our skin, no matter what the pigment is, it’s this kind of salmon-belly color when it gets cut open,” says Justin Vernon, opening up to Andy Battaglia in a new story for Pantone. “I’ve always thought about the humanity of it…SABLE is darkness – and the choice to go into the darkness. It’s solitary. It’s pressing the bruise. It’s self-martyrdom and sadness. fABLE represents a new me, with new flesh for a new healthy, happy person.” Salmon, then, is the colour of life lived.

Photo credit: Eric Carlson

“We’ve never done anything like this,” adds Vernon, of the many salmon products and the colour’s ultimate manifestation in Pantone’s fABLE Salmon. “But every band, punk or pop, is in a commercial, capitalist space. Old punk bands were the best brand-builders of all time. Black Flag has the best logo ever. I was like, ‘Let’s lean into that’.”

Bon Iver fABLE Salmon is on display in a new collection of collaborations with Copenhagen Designs across tote bags, key chains, t-shirts, and more.