The Magenta edition
by Alina Kilchenko (IFM/BSc1, 2026–2027)
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I was wearing magenta the night I lost myself. Its artificial brightness is part of the visual world as neon signs, club lights, and nights that feel more intense than they really are. A colour that was never supposed to exist in nature was made in 1858–1859 by a French chemist named François-Emmanuel Verguin. A synthetic dye first called fuchsine, then renamed after the battle of Magenta 1859 — a battle so bloody the colour took its name from it. Magenta, a bright, loud colour, named after violence and death. The dye itself formed dark green crystals, only turning magenta when dissolved as if even the colour had to change itself to be seen. The bloodshed behind Magenta became something people wore, danced under and called exciting. Maybe that is why I chose it. I needed to become the Magenta version of myself. Hiding the blood with loudness, beauty and the simulation of freedom.
Standing in the centre of Propaganda, a well-known club in Moscow, I already starting to say yes to any drink any conversation, more concerned with being seen than my own limits. The bass is what hit me first, low enough to feel all the way in my ribs. It took away the weight of the burden that brought me here in the first place. Then it was the lights, flashing too fast to follow, pink, blue, white, magenta, taking away any thoughts of my past. Bodies moved quickly around me, so close that I could smell their perfume, sweat and drinks spilt over clothes, my body was not a concern anymore. Someone pulled my wrist. Someone screamed something in my ear. Someone asked if I was enjoying. The answer, no matter what, was always yes. I remember looking down at my magenta top and feeling like I belonged, bright, loud and impossible to ignore. I let myself believe that it meant something, the attention the pointless conversations. For a moment, I felt part of something fast and shiny, and moved too quickly for me to ask whether this is where I wanted to be. So, I stopped asking. I drank more than I wanted to, I stayed longer than I planned to. I said yes when I wanted to escape, laughed when nothing was funny, and let myself disappear. I told myself this is what freedom looks like. But freedom is not forgetting your own name.
I see myself in magenta. Its appearance is what I reached for: loud, bright, careless. I took my parts, performed and morphed. From a bloody mess to a synthetically confident and loud persona. By the end of the night, I bled out, returning to the version I was before. Magenta was never natural. It was manufactured, named after violence and repackaged into a box with sparkles and colours. That’s what I did too, took the messy and turned it into something that fit. The magenta made me feel seen, but it was always artificial.
