The Release of Avatar: The Way of Water Made Us Realize: Blue People Have Always Ruled the Runways

Avatar: The Way of Water, the highly anticipated, long-delayed follow-up to James Cameron’s magnum opus Avatar will be released this week. It’s been over a decade since the original film premiered in 2009, and it’s difficult to parse exactly how that movie has influenced popular culture. A recent article argued that unlike Star Wars or the Marvel movies, Avatar has remained an artifact of its time; there are no memes, no memorable lines, and it’s possible many have forgotten character names or important plot points.

But influence pop culture it has. At both the fall 2022 and spring 2023 shows, blue people—well, models in a variety of blue shades—stalked the runways. They sported striking blue beauty looks at Marni, Bluemarine, and Moschino, and were painted head-to-toe blue at Diesel and Batsheva, while blue bodysuits appeared at Off-White, Dion Lee, and Vetements. There can be only one logical explanation, the impending comeback of the Na’vi people (the blue humanoids who inhabit the jungle moon of Pandora, where Avatar takes place) have made its way into designers’ psyches. 

The jury is out on whether Cameron’s much-awaited sequel will live up to its predecessor. Avatar remains the highest grossing film of all time (now close to $3 billion in box office earnings), but it’s worth noting it received Golden Globe nominations for both Best Motion Picture–Drama and Best Director–Motion Picture before it was even widely released. Whether or not The Way of Water ends up becoming part of our meme culture, we will head to the theaters this weekend to see Cameron’s latest and greatest visual effects (Kate Winslet did not learn to hold her breath underwater for seven and a half minutes for us to disrespect her like that.) Scroll through to see Avatar blue on the runways.