Pantone's color forecast for 2013 home is novel but practical

HTT Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 3/12/2012 2:26:03 PM

Chicago - Pantone's home and interiors color trends for 2013 revolve around nine key themes that offer both freshness and staying power, according to the global color authority.
The palettes include:

• Connoisseur: Elegance is the theme here, with a mixture of monochromatic violets and orchids, liquid pink, deep mahogany, alyssum white and beechnut green, all boucing off champagne beige and silver.
• Glamour: A contemporary take inspired by Art Deco, the trend encompasses Rio red, and Monaco blue, tap shoe black and chinchilla, gray moonmist and jasper teal offset by silver and champagne beige.
• New Old School: Prep school motifs adapt to the 21st Century with ribbon red, bright white and sodalite blue as well as nautical hues of breen and ultramarine green. The balance on the neutral side includes gargoyle and microchip grays.
• Rugged Individuals: Colors drawn from the prairie include polished leather, weathered wood and animal hide, raw sienna tones, vintage indigo and the tones of stonewashed blue jeans.
• Extracts: The subtler iteration of spice tones embraces zesty coral, brandied melon and apple cinnamon as well as dusty pink, baked clay and green banana.
• Footprints: The salute to tribal colors includes peacock blue, pink flambé and solar-powered yellow along with a yellow green called oasis and Sudan brown.
• Sojourn: The contemporary cast for purples consists of a Syrah wine hue, blackish plum, rosy foxglove and Baton Rouge fuchsia against pampas and the green winter moss. Balancing neutrals are cobblestone and shitake.
• Surface Treatments: Texture comes into play here along with tones of Maui blue, vapor blue, tornado gray, fallen rock and birch, combined with a vegetal agave green. These are set against medal bronze and patina.
• Out of the Ordinary: Whimsy defines this trend, with hues of bonnie blue, pureed pumpkin, chocolate truffle, amber green, linden green, golden rod, bright violet and rosebud.

"To create the ‘magic' that ultimately leads to sales in the marketplace, colors for 2013 will need to coax and cajole, soothe or astonish, renew and replenish," said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. "At the same time, there will be the consumer's expectation of practicality - what colors will have staying power and can be relied upon as a steadying influence in unsteady times."