Pantone Colour of the Year 2016 Predictions

Signarture Creative Director, Sarah Leslie, was asked by Houzz, the leading international platform for home design and renovation, to predict which colour might be chosen as Pantone Colour of the Year for 2016...

Her thoughts, alongside those of other professional interior designers, decorators and colour consultants, were published in the Houzz article above, and can be read in full below.

Pantone is widely regarded as the global authority on colour, and Executive Director Leatrice Eiseman’s  predictions are global, and used across a multitude of industries. 

Since the neutral ‘Sand Dollar’ in 2006, a succession of highly saturated hues have been nominated as Pantone ‘Colour of the Year’. Marsala in 2015 was perhaps their most surprising choice yet. With many of us yearning for quieter, calming tones as an antidote to our fast paced, technology dominated lives, it could be time for a more approachable, less saturated colour. Indeed US Paint manufacturer Benjamin Moore has named ‘Simply White’ as their colour of 2016 but our bet is that Pantone chose one of the colours they’ve already highlighted within their top 10 for Spring 2016 forecast specifically for the Fashion RTW.

 I’d like to see ‘Lilac Gray’ or ‘Rose Quartz’ take the title. Grays are being forecast strongly into Autumn Winter, as are pinks. We all know that fashion trends filter through to the home with increasing rapidity, and ‘Pink Dogwood’ is a more blush tone than ‘Rose Quartz’ that features in the Pantone’s Home & Interior ‘Ephemera’ palette for 2016. 

Eiseman looks for colors in their ascendancy, “colours that are being used in broader ways and broader context than before”. The most pre-ordered colour for the recently released iPhone 6S was, reportedly, from men and women alike, the new ‘Rose Gold’... that’s broadening the context for rose/blush/quartz pink!

If they decide against calm and instead to up the ante, ‘Buttercup’ (Yellow) would have to be a strong contender.