Crewneck sweaters, bleachers, and website banners. Building signs, pennants, and graduation gowns. All are united by a singular visual language: Yale blue, a color that shapes the memories and mementos students collect from move-in day to Commencement weekend.
But what, exactly, makes Yale blue?
An account of the Yale crew team, dated to 1859, offers a hint. The men wore deep blue breeches and headgear, said witnesses - a hue in contrast with the crimson of their competitor, Harvard. The moment is often cited as the origin of Yale blue; the photographic proof, however, only exists in black-and-white.
In the century since, several hunts for the "true" Yale blue have ensued, aided by a wealth of artifacts - silk swatches, newspaper clippings, and color chips - that show how Yale blue, as color and idea, has morphed over time.
