This hue is inspired by the brilliant red of spawning sockeye salmon, one of the most dramatic color transformations in the animal kingdom. Born in freshwater streams, young sockeyes spend years at sea cloaked in silver-blue. But when they return upriver to spawn, their bodies flush a striking crimson, while their heads turn green. The red comes from carotenoid pigments—particularly astaxanthin—originally absorbed from their diet of krill and plankton, then concentrated in their skin during the final phase of life. This fiery display signals reproductive readiness and fuels one of nature’s most spectacular migrations, a crimson tide surging against the current.