Live Radiantly

As we enter a new year it's time again for Pantone to announce their color of the year. The color chosen for 2014 is Radiant Orchid! This color choice has proven to be incredibly influential in predicting trends and determining designer's color palettes for their season collections. In the past Pantone has selected colors such as Emerald, Tangerine Tango and Honeysuckle and these colors have been taken into consideration when developing pieces and helping designers flesh out their collections. It is something the fashion world looks forward to every year in anticipation of how they will then go about creating and developing their collections based on this color information.


The Pantone color choice has inspired not only the fashion world, but has also penetrated every aspect of the retail market. These colors help determine the products for home goods, decorating and event planning, hair and make up and many other industries. For example when Sephora heard that the color for 2014 was Radiant Orchid, they developed an entire marketing campaign around the idea of this brilliantly colored make up becoming a part of their customers every day palette. This color has already been made into eye shadow, lipstick, blush, hair chalk and several other kinds of make up so customers can pronounce their love of the color. In the home goods market, the color purple paint has been flying off the shelves. It is being marketed as a warm and calming color that is perfect for any nursery, bedroom or playroom. The color is no longer just for girls, it's becoming a neutral color and called the way to embrace your creative side.


Purple has always been a very calming color and associated with gentle and lovely things such as flowers. It will be interesting to see how designers decide to incorporate purple not only into their Spring collections but also their Fall and Winter collections. I'm interested to see how the color will also be developed into a menswear collection. Men recently have been none too shy about wearing colors that are considered feminine. I wonder if they will continue to use the color strictly as an accent piece or decide to go bold and use it as an all over color. With all of the fashions ahead of us this year, it looks like Radiant Orchid is lined up to be a very successful and inspirational color for 2014.