What colour will 2018 be?

A lot of heavy thought and discussion goes into deciding what the colour prediction will be for each year; last year it was a springy green, this year its a deep PURPLE called ULTRA VIOLET according to Pantone.

This means they are betting on stores full of purple home goods, napkins, table top, towels etc.

The year of MAUVE in the 1980s (remember that?) we even had Mauve automobiles.

I actually did my entire apartment in mauve paint, furniture, lamps etc accented with brass, ivory and chocolate: It was VERY ON TREND as they like to say now.

Overstock.com and Wayfair BOTH had purple occasional chairs and upholstered furniture in their online catalogs and I have noticed purple creeping into bed and bath trends as well.

PURPLE is one of those colours that people either love or hate-I like it as an accent but ONLY as an accent and this particular purple I find a bit cold and uninteresting.

I tend to like purples more towards Lavender or Fuchsia-warmer and less likely to be shown in a colour story with some livid green and magenta-that was CHRISTMAS 10 years ago or so-the stores were full of striped and harlequin papers in purple green and magenta!

When I think or PURPLE I think of PANSY flowers (often Purple and Yellow) Violets (often Purple and yellow) and Grapes (Which is where the green and purple palette comes from): I present that there is far more Purple and yellow in the world and AAMOF; Yellow in the complimentary colour of Purple!

Look at the range of purples and see if you can figure why they picked the colour that they did?

I had thought we would see one of two colours this year as colour of the years; either a sunny clear YELLOW or a Cayanne Pepper RED (the fresh pepper not the powdered spice which is more ORANGE).

I apparently was not the only one thinking in this direction since a famous paint company picked this as their colour of the year:

Benjamin Moore went with Caliente Red!

They are showing it as an accent wall, full room, front door and decorating colour-I happen to LOVE red sheets and have several sets and when I am down I usually wear a red shirt-so this colour works for me totally HOWEVER:

Behr is counting on a soft, Southwestern green and Sherwin Williams on a very avante garde teal both are styling them as BEACHY, Oceanside, casual colours.

Interesting eh?

Manufacturers pay big bucks to get in on colour trends early and I do remember a time when purple was king-remember the PURPLE PROWLER?

This was the dream automobile-the sexy purple roadster that set a trend...

There was a time back in the 1980's I think when you could find a shoppe in almost any mall that was dedicated to PURPLE things-My niece was VERY into purple back then of course she hadn't even reached her teenage years at that point.

My fear is that we wont get the HIGH STYLE vision of purple-we'll get the more eccentric versions:

So what's your take on Ultra Violet? Will you be more likely to trend towards the beachy soft colours or the CALIENTE RED? Or do you see yourself sticking with the status quo and waiting for a more sedate and classic colour palette in the future?

I don't see a purple patent leather arm chair in my future or even purple towels in my Tiffany Blue bathroom-I used to have a shirt that colour I may still do-if so I may wear it on January 1 just to salute the nice people at Pantone.