Colors of the Year

Let me introduce the colors for 2016. Serenity on the left and that's Rose Quartz on the right. I had no idea colors of the year was ever even a thing, but  it is important to designers. This year is special because two colors were picked. Apparently I'm not the only indecisive person on the planet. But then, as one perennially happy friend likes to say, why not have both! 

The reason these two colors were picked is as follows:

I'm all for wellness and order and connection and peace. Who isn't?  I can think of a few people, but this is about color not politics. 

Expect to start seeing these two colors on everything from walls to coffee cups to rugs, and beyond. The great color Gods also said that these colors were chosen because they promote "gender equality or fluidity." Or, in simpler terms, come on people let's all get together. Sorta like a song from the 1960s. 

Thinking about these serene 2016 colors, made me reflect upon the colors that defined my youth. Harvest gold. It was everywhere from kitchen appliances to shag carpet.  It was matched with dark wood cabinets which have lately returned to fashion after some years of being snubbed. One thing to be said about harvest gold, no matter how dark the inside of the house was, and many of those 1960s ranch-style tract homes were like caves, one could always find the fridge glowing in the night. 

Avocado was another color one couldn't avoid. Everyone had at least one avocado something in their homes even if it was the TV trays. (For those too young to know what TV trays are... google it as you do everything else.) The man hightailing it out the back door likely doesn't even notice that the laundry appliances are avocado. They could be red polka-dotted for all he cares. He's thinking about his two martini lunch. His wife is doing the breakfast dishes. If she's lucky she has an avocado green dishwasher to match the washer and dryer. Gender equality hadn't been invented yet.

Colors we once thought were pretty darn cool changes in time. This living room from the late 1980s is proof. I once thought those  swirling colors on those high back chairs, the gold light fixture, the glass top table, was modern and pretty. It looked to me like a  mark of success to have this  dining room.  Now I sigh. So dated. And yet some of those color tones in the room look like, oh my, serenity blue? 

Maybe things don't really end. They just fade away for awhile. This is a kitchen, as you can tell from the pencil skirt, gloves, hat and other garments worn by the women,  from at least 50 year's ago. The appliances are called rose quartz. Sound familiar? So maybe everything does come back, one must just live long enough to see it happen. Perhaps Oscar Wilde's famous statement, "familiarity breeds contempt" can work the opposite. 

Stay away long enough and, like serenity blue and rose quartz, popularity and admiration will come again. For everything there is a time and a season. Another old 60s song.

 Who knows. Next year Harvest Gold might be lighting up our lives. Never say never. 

Happy 2016. Keep it colorful.