I love color... and my color choices change, sometimes drastically, depending on my mood. I love a great, earthy rich color palette at times, and at other times, I go for the bright turquoises, pinks and oranges. But then I also see the value in the soft neutrals of cream, white, and beige, with a touch of blush and sage added in. Honestly, I am all over the map when it comes to color!
The Pantone Color Institute is consulting service that forecasts global color trends. Every year, for the past 25 years, they have introduced a "color of the year". For those of you unfamiliar with Pantone, in 1963 (actually the same year I was born!), the brilliant folks at Pantone created a system that changed how the printing industry "saw" color. The system, called the Pantone Matching System is a tool that organizes color standards into a proprietary numbering system so that when recreating a color, it can be done consistently. This system revolutionized the printing industry, and has become THE standard when color consistency is a priority. Their tools for breaking colors into a numeric code is the global standard. All industries use their systems -- there are two, as they had to take into consideration that a color printed on paper would look different than the same color on a different surface like fabric. I was introduced to the PMS system when I worked for an advertising and marketing agency. It was mind blowing -- and pure magic to me. So, I am always fascinated with the color of the year.
For 2024, the color is called "Peach Fuzz", a soft peach tone that is simple, but luscious. I love the color, but what I really love is the way that Pantone talks about and describes the color. On the Pantone website, Peach Fuzz is described like this: "Peach Fuzz captures our desire to nurture ourselves and others. It's a velvety gentle peach tone whose all-embracing spirit enriches mind, body, and soul." They even have a video on their site that captures the "spirit" of the color. Described with words like "coziness", "kindness", "togetherness", "community", "tenderness", "caring", "sharing" and "warmth", their messaging just drew me in like a big group hug and wrapped me in the warmth of their words and images. It's amazing what those words can do to your heart when you read them.
It made me feel that they brought forth a color -- a soft hue that is between peach and pink, and are putting out to our world the messages that our hearts need to hear. If you get a minute, check out their website, https://www.pantone.com/articles/color-of-the-year/what-is-peach-fuzz and see what I mean. You will never look at the soft, peachy/pink hue of "Peach Fuzz" the same. And you will see this hue now in fashion, marketing, and definitely in my flowers.
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