It’s not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis; it’s cerulean.
That pivotal monologue in The Devil Wears Prada explained how haute couture created a million-dollar industry based on that most specific shade of blue.
Cerulean derives from Latin caeruleus, encompassing “blue, dark blue, blue-green”, suggested to be a result of a dissimilation of caelulum (changing one of the “l” sounds to “r”), the diminutive of caelum (“heaven, sky”) – the Latin word caeruleus was applied by Roman authors to the sky, the Mediterranean and, occasionally, to leaves or fields. The word entered English as cerulean in the 1660s, to mean “sky-coloured, sky-blue”.
