It may be true, as Project Runway’s Heidi Klum says, that in fashion “one day you’re in, the next you’re out,” but when it comes to colors—their popularity shifts with the cultural winds (although it’s hard to imagine black or white ever truly being out of fashion, especially with designers). Colors come into prominence from decade to decade driven by influences ranging from the state of the economy to world politics and cultural phenomena—these are the factors examined by the color experts, and the prism through which they are viewed is the world of fashion.
Today a whole new palette of colors is available. With advanced digital printing processes, colors and effects that were previously impossible, or price prohibitive to produce, are now design options. In the twenty-first century we’ve seen colors formerly known for their ability to be spotted at sea, applied to a wide range of clothing and other products including furniture and automobiles. And colors as delicate as a blush now live beyond the canvas. There are subtleties and finishes given to color, whether applied to paper, cloth, metal or wood, that are new and fresh. We’ve moved beyond Navajo White to surround ourselves with colors plucked from nature and the imagination. Pantone has even partnered with Fine Paints of Europe to create a perfect match for the more than 3,000 colors in the PANTONE PAINTS + INTERIORS and PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM©, allowing designers, architects and home-owners the ability to reproduce those little color chips that accompany this article.
“We’ve long been recognized as the language of color for the design industries and pantone paints are a natural extension of our color expertise. Fine Paints of Europe shares our design and brand philosophy, as well as our focus on technical accuracy and quality control, to empower designers to confidently specify and accurately match their favorite pantone Colors in paint,” says Lisa Herbert, executive vice president of Pantone, Inc. “Designers and consumers will now be able to draw on our forecasting and color selection tools across all phases of their design projects—from inspiration to application.”
SAME TENTS, NEW CIRCUS
For thirteen years, Pantone has surveyed the designers of New York Fashion Week to uncover the season’s most important color trends. Pantone’s top ten color choices derived from the Spring 2007 fashion shows ranged from the cool neutral Opal Gray to the violet-infused Hollyhock. Neutrals stepped up in importance, as a background for nature-inspired splashes of color. The designers’ inspirations, as printed in Pantone’s Fashion Color Report Spring 2007, ranged from the Mediterranean region (Douglas Hannant, and others), to watery distortions (Zac Posen), architecture (Yigal Azrouël), and the colors of the earth in Provence and the beaches of the Greek Islands (Kathryn Dianos), among other art and geographical references.
Lovely, appealing colors, drawn from nature, combined with exquisite detail produced some of the prettiest clothes for spring in years. And some of the garment details and colors made their way onto the invitations. Heatherette, known for their It Girl fan base (the Hilton sisters walked for them), printed their invite on heavy cotton canvas, and Manuel Canovas sent an elaborate die-cut invitation in gold and cream, with a removable black and gold card to carry to the tents.
Chicettes tottered on alarmingly high stiletto heels, baby-doll tops billowing above short skirts, necks encircled with chains and glinting stones, designer handbags clutched to gym-toned arms. (Yes, the term fashionista has been put to rest by The Daily, the deliciously dishy paper published by IMG.) The fashion press was out in force, led by Vogue’s Anna Wintour, her trademark bob now an elegant blonde shade, sporting iconic sunglasses rain or shine. There seemed to be more people than ever and the mood was upbeat. Even the design of the tent’s interior was understated elegance, with a glittering mass of chandeliers (seen through a filmy screen) hanging over the now-empty fountain, and Sicis-designed giant turquoise mosaic high heels filled with ivy, flanking the entrance.
Fashion Week sightings included Kanye West turning the lenses on the paparazzi in Bryant Park; French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld vamping on the front steps; Emmy Rossum and Erika Christensen side-by-side front row at Peter Som setting off a firestorm of flashes; and Bette Midler and her daughter at Manuel, the only show with rock music in the mix.
COLOR GOES GLOBAL
“Globalism and ecology would be the two biggest influences affecting trends,” says Margaret Walch, director of the Color Association of the United States (www.colorassociation.com), the oldest color forecasting service in the U.S.
“Globalism is on everyone’s mind. Members like Colgate Palmolive and Patagonia want us to speak about globalism and color,” she explains. “They want to know more than which colors are fashion-forward; [they want to know] how the colors will play out, where they came from, what is their cultural significance. People used to come to us and ask us ‘what is the big color?’ Now they are more interested in seeing the possibilities of color application. It’s more of a design sensibility.”
One reason is the sheer amount of information accessible to all via the Web. “We all can agree on what’s important,” she claims. “You and I may have different ideas about what globalism is, or environmentalism, or handmade—but we can agree those are issues. That’s a major change, a twenty-first century change; now not just New Yorkers, or magazine editors, but everybody knows the score.
“Metallicized color is a major issue. I think it is for the print industry too. Basically what it is is a special effect that everyone now seems to understand. All of a sudden Americans have accepted metallics,” says Walch, who admits she used to think of them as vulgar, a bit too Miami Beach.
Women’s fashion has given us a real acceptance of red and pink as colors, and [used] together. If you had to divide it by hue: pink, red and yellow would be the big color movements, as far as newness. The other issue is green, which has been phenomenal and it is scattered in every color story of interiors.” Walch points to an opened color card for The Association’s Environmental/Interior Colors Forecast for 2008/2009, and describes the color stories laid out in shiny rows of silk-screened paper swatches: “The East, which is probably the most sophisticated story because it has all those blackened colors; Indian Market which is the easiest story to deal with, it’s got the pinks, reds, greens, it’s very likable; New England Shores, my favorite, which is elegant and subdued but colorful.”
The influence of craft, or the DIY movement was seen all over the runways—and on the trendier streets of New York. Embellishment extends from fashion to interiors to graphic design through the use of die-cuts, tip-ons and layering of colors and textures. Indeed, Walch points out that texture has been added to some of the CAUS fabric samples on their color cards, to demonstrate printing subtleties.
Shimmer is also new and Walch draws a comparison to women’s cosmetics where shimmer and matte are combined—an effective design contrast. “We’ve gone beyond glitter, we’re into shimmer subtlety,” she says. “Cosmetics people will, and can, do almost anything. They’ve moved way beyond color in that sense. It’s really not is it pink or is it yellow, but what’s the context of it, what’s the surface of it? How light affects color is part of this technological change. Another thing I’d point out is a certain level of exoticism. We started naming colors last year and people loved it. You’ve got a context to understand the color.” She’s found that cultural reference can trigger further research leading to deeper understanding and a rich source of design inspiration. [See Resources, page 130, for useful references.]
COLOR STORIES
While sitting in the Lycra Lounge, with the buzz of the tents as soundtrack, Pantone Color Institute executive director and renowned color expert Leatrice Eiseman lists the trends she sees emerging from Fashion Week.
“There are some interesting things in the colors for spring. You know we talk with the designers. We don’t just pull the colors out of a hat,” she begins. “We ask them for their contributions. We also talk to real people out there—the consumer, the end user, how they feel about color and what they’d like to see.”
Pointing to Pantone’s Spring 2007 Fashion Color Report, she echoes Walch, “Green is an ongoing story. I think for at least the next few years green is still going to be a pivotal color. It is the color that speaks to nature; it has been since the end of the 1990s. This is the most trendy,” she says of Tarragon, a soft neutral. “Green Sheen is a greenish yellow as opposed to the yellowish green. It’s continuing on, but it’s subtle, it’s not in-your-face acidic. I’ve been saying since last season yellow is the new orange. It’s because when you open people’s minds to a new color as orange was when it first came on the scene, as time goes on it opens their awareness to not only orange but the next-door neighbor on the color wheel.
“What we saw when purple first came into the picture was more the blue-purples, the spiritual mystical purples,” Eiseman continues. “Now we’re getting the sexier purple, we’re getting red as an undertone; that adds more dynamism to the color. Café Crème is a holdover; it’s the old brown story but for spring we’ve added some cream to the coffee. We’ve given it a light soft touch. It’s a great color to combine with other shades, like the Hollyhock.
“It’s so nuanced it just has a slight suggestion of a color to it,” she says of Silver Peony. Blue, the perennial favorite, takes two different directions that are very fresh, very new for spring. “The idea of two soft blues in a spring palette really tells us this blue is strong,” Eiseman claims.
Blue is a strong trend forecast by the Color Marketing Group, as well. Founded in 1962, CMG is an international, not-for-profit Association of more than 1,000 Color Design Professionals. According to Susan Hayes Hoover, CMG, chairman of the Consumer Colors Current® Committee, the most influential colors for 2006–2007 that came out of the Consumer Colors Current® Workshops held last spring were from the red and blue family. Reds continue to lead the consumer forecast and are heading in two distinct directions. Workshop participants found that reds are simultaneously cooling down and warming up. CMG sees the family of reds as heavily influenced by the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympics as well as global influences from Central America and India.
Whatever a color’s origins, we know that color unleashes our emotions; it has the power to calm, to excite, to inspire. This day, and for many more to come, color is most definitely in. ca
