Believe it or not, Donald Trump is out of touch with the ultra-rich.
Whereas Trump flew around in his own dark blue Boeing 757 (complete with 24-karat gold-plated seat belts) and his name emblazoned on the fuselage, the extremely wealthy are spending big league on understatement: $350,000 paint jobs for their private jets in the hottest shade around.
That sum will coat a large Gulfstream in “Matterhorn white,” a shade named after the snowcapped peak in the Alps. One private-jet charter company told Moneyish this particular shade of white is now “the new white.” (And also distinct from another, less popular shade, Snow White.)
Why do these jet owners want to look like they’re flying around in an iPhone with wings? It’s part of the post-financial crisis aesthetic, perhaps. A desire to blend in. One director of a firm called “Luxury Aircraft Solutions” told Moneyish:
Matterhorn white is a soft white that—when applied properly—seems a mile deep. It will remind you of a snowy morning.
Elsewhere on the planes, jet owners are ditching flashy accents in gold and pink and instead opting for dark red and blue stripes. And they are even opting for a gray palette in the interior of the plane. (Clearly they didn’t get the memo that Pantone declared a cheerful, tangy green as the color of the year.)
The bar to access a private plane has come down with several startups adopting an Uber-like business model of flight shares. Those flyers are not so lucky as to paint the plane themselves. One day though, if they put enough in their piggy banks, they too might be able to choose a color for their very own plane.
Pink may even be back in fashion by then.