Pink's yellow

WASHINGTON -- Thomas Pink, the swank London-based haberdashery, set up shop in downtown Washington this summer, with its world-famous logo and hot-pink shopping bags and gift boxes.

But drop by the new outpost and you might be more taken with the shop's jolting yellow.

The intense shade of marigold is part of a corporate make-over designed to reflect the company's new ownership. The original Thomas Pink was an 18th-century Mayfair tailor whose name lives on in the scarlet fox-hunting jackets he made, known as riding "pinks." ("In the pink" describes those who wore them.)

The Pink chain, with 20 shops in the United Kingdom, was purchased last year by the French luxury conglomerate Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, maker of fine luggage and even finer champagne.

The new owners "wanted a way to say this is a store with traditional roots and a modern face," says Steve Lochte, an architect with Brand + Allen, the San Francisco firm designing U.S. stores. The color was drawn from the flagship store on London's fashionable Jermyn Street.

"It used to be a pastel lemon yellow, but when they saw this gutsier gold, they really went for it. We matched the British color with an American paint." It's Benjamin Moore No. 313, for those brave enough to try it at home.