Woo-hoo! Let’s hear it for pink! Honeysuckle: that kind of orange-ish, kind of reddish, bright, happy, optimistic PINK!
Today Pantone announces that Honeysuckle, aka 18-2120 TCX, is its color of the year for 2011. They proclaim:
While the 2010 color of the year, PANTONE 15-5519 Turquoise, served as an escape for many, Honeysuckle emboldens us to face everyday troubles with verve and vigor.
I read the news in the Wall Street Journal’s excellent Personal Journal section, where the pinks in the collage looked stronger than Pantone’s swatch.
No matter. I don’t even care what the totally exact shade of pink Pantone has crowned queen. I care more that it’s pink AT ALL, and not a wussy pastel pink. And not a too-dark, obnoxious hot pink. And not a too blue cool pink…
…well look at that. Seems like I do care after all.
I was never that high on turquoise, although some of you pointed out that my new office color, Benjamin Moore’s 2052-70 Ice Blue, is, in fact, a super light shade of turquoise.
(How great would it look to switch out that lamp for a Honeysuckle pink one?)
But I drew the line when a few of you argued that my newly reupholstered sofa could be called a dark turquoise. I mean, even with broad artistic interpretation, the sofa doesn’t come close to Pantone’s swatch.
But see? There was a moment when I toyed with upholstering our smaller sofa pink and white and “those darn chairs” white with pink and white pillows.
But I hesitated. And the moment passed.
Chicken. I could have been so cutting-edge!
As we apply Pantone’s Honeysuckle to the decorating arena, the challenge will be to get the not so forward-thinking men in our lives (not all men, just those who are more, shall we say, conservative in their tastes) to buy in.
I think we can do it.
Annie Elliott – aka bossy color – is an interior decorator and design blogger in Washington, D.C. She has been quoted in publications from The Washington Post to Real Simple and is considered an expert on color, residential space planning, and telling people what to do in the nicest way possible.
