Guess The (Sort Of) Official Color Of 2009

NEW YORK — Enough gloom and doom: There's a prediction from a leading color source that cheerful and sunny yellow will be the influential color of 2009.

Pantone, which provides color standards to design industries, specifically cites "mimosa," a vibrant shade of yellow illustrated by the flowers of some mimosa trees as well as the brunch-favorite cocktail, as its top shade of the new year. In general, Pantone expects the public to embrace many tones of optimistic yellow.

"I think it's just the most wonderful symbolic color of the future," says Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. "It's invariably connected to warmth, sunshine and cheer _ all the good things we're in dire need of right now."

In the spring fashion collections previewed earlier in the fall for retailers and editors, pops of yellow brightened the runways of Carolina Herrera _ who called her favorite shade marigold _ Badgley Mischka, Zac Posen and Michael Kors, among others. Kors even included a retro yellow polka-dot bikini that clearly harkened back to a more upbeat time.

The fashion world first embraced orange a few years ago and that has evolved into yellow, which had already been gaining popularity in the home market, too.

"People know yellow lightens up the atmosphere," Eiseman says.

Home-goods companies based in Paris and Milan, Italy, have already been heavily influenced by yellow, says Tom Mirabile, vice president of global trends and design at Lifetime Brands, Inc., whose portfolio includes Cuisinart, Farberware and Pfaltzgraff.

It helps that it looks good in florals and has a close association with nature, a driving force in the marketplace right now, and it complements current favorites green and purple. (In 2008, "blue iris," a purple-tinged blue, was color of the year.)

"I'd say you should get used to seeing yellow in places you're not used to seeing it," Eiseman says.

Comments

[Seaglass]

No yellow for me. Looks terrible on most people.

[FortuneTeller]

Late 60's early 70's...and the beat goes on.

[elementalchick]

My kitchen is a lighter shade of this color. for clothes I think most people would feel like a cross between a post it and a school bus. good color for accent.

[Promise]

Many people don't look good in yellow. I like it in nature...the sun, flowers, etc...but not so much in clothing.

[candyperfumegirl]

It's a little too sunny for my taste...

[JakeZula]

Yuck. Yellow has so many bad connotations. And it's just plain ugly.

[carrieanna]

I grew up with yellow shag carpet similar to that color! LOL. My current bedroom is painted yellow but it's more of a chalky yellow.

[2008FedUP]

That is the color of the walls of my house for the past 2 years and we are HAPPY people. Great choice. Maybe I am psychic LOLOLOL

[johnnygoodwud]

what about yellow snow?

[mater]

Isn't that the color the anti-govt rebels in Thailand were all wearing to get their president to resign? I think they made their point & won their issue, but shut down airports, trapped alot of foreign visitors from leaving the country for several days and were carrying guns and other weapons. Maybe we could think of a color not associated with someone else's violence?