This year, the world’s favourite colour will be blue. That’s according to the gurus Pantone Color Institute, who have selected Pantone 19-4052 Classic Blue as their Colour of the Year (COTY) for 2020. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the first Pantone colour gurus descending from the mount to tell us what our favourite hue of the year will be.
Since 2000, Pantone has chosen an annual COTY based on trend-forecasting research. The claim is that the colour reflects “what is taking place in our global culture at a moment in time”. One colour for the whole world? Colour me cynical.
A lot of the language around the Pantone COTY launch in January is nebulous to the extent that it’s very hard to work out what it actually means, but have no doubt that colours do have power. Scientists have shown they can change the way that we think, feel and express ourselves (if you doubt this, try on a garment in your least favourite colour and see how it makes you feel). The question is – does the COTY reflect a global zeitgeist or does it create one? Probably, it’s a bit of both. Classic blue is already out there, in fashion, interiors, and graphic design. But its promotion by Pantone will bring it straight to the fore. It seems folks that we got the blues for sure.
Michelle Ogundehin, former editor of Elle Decoration UK (and my all time design hero) writes for Dezeen: “It’s natural for people to want to belong and feel ‘on-trend’, therefore sales of this colour inevitably rise and the prophecy is duly declared a success. However, because it’s driven only by a carefully orchestrated media grab for attention, bolstered by feverish bandwagon jumping as brands small and large scramble to display stock in the now newly requisite it-colour, it does not mean it can be taken as a true indication of the state of the nation.”
Classic Blue is not quite cobalt, not quite azure, and deep rather than dark. It is colour that people find hard to object to or, as Pantone claims, “a solid and dependable blue hue we can always rely on… imprinted in our psyches as a restful colour, Classic Blue brings a sense of peace and tranquillity to the human spirit, offering refuge.” It is a colour that says: everybody please calm down!
Ogundehin responds: “I’d argue instead that, in this supremely anxious and confusing era where rage and rebellion have become the action of choice, it’s just not the moment to champion escapism.” Promoting a soothing colour at a time when action is needed isn’t necessarily a responsible thing to do. The current Oxford Word of the Year is “climate emergency”. Just saying.
“Classic Blue is a safe colour. I expect that’s why they chose it,” says Olha Kelly, colour consultant with MRCB. “It’s not a bad colour, but there’s nothing exciting about it.” Kelly has a neurological difference known as synaesthesia that allows her to experience colours as tastes and feelings. “I don’t think that Classic Blue tastes of anything. It feels like Jell-O, a big blog of Jell-O…”
Interestingly, this year Pantone has collaborated with a number of sensory experts to envision Classic Blue as a sound, a smell, a taste, and a feeling. This manifests as a Multi-Sensory Kit that includes, as well as the traditional colour swatch, a piece of suede-like fabric, a musk-and-sea-salt-scented candle, a blue, berry-flavoured jelly, and a three-minute audio track.
Every year, the Irish paint company Fleetwood produces the Pantone Colour of the Year in paint (€5 for a tester pot). “People are always interested in the Colour of the Year,” Kelly says. “It has an impact.”
If you are interested in using Classic Blue on the walls, she suggests you go the whole hog and paint all four walls, or else choose a different wall colour and use Classic Blue in fabrics and accessories. “It’s all about what you put with it,” she says. “It will always look good with a crispy white, not cream, or a deep dark chocolate brown.” To make Classic Blue more interesting, try pairing it with a very dark sharp black like Onyx from Benjamin Moore, or Six Sods from Curator.
The trick to using Classic Blue in interiors is to mix it up. It’s a very solid colour and too much of it can be overwhelming, but against a white background or as part of a pattern of variegated blues and greens, it can be lovely.
“We often use it as an accent colour, especially paired with white,” says Rebecca Roe, interior designer and one half of the mother-daughter team behind Hedgeroe Home. “I tend not to use it on walls because it can make a room look colder and smaller than it actually is, except possibly in an entrance hall, where it will set off any painting that you hang on it. It also works on cabinetry and kitchen islands, and it sets off wooden floors really well.”
Serendipitously, Hedgeroe Home’s 2020 homeware collection includes a lot of blue, much of it in a shade very similar to Pantone’s COTY. The Rhoscolyn Rug in Cobalt (€1,180 for a 160cm x 260cm rug) comes from William Yeoward in dizzying patterns of white and blue inspired by the sands on the North Wales coastline. The block-printed Cobalt Metro fabric is their own design (€79 per metre) and works well on a headboard, combined with cushions embroidered in slightly different shades of blue (from €130 to €169).
Styled collections like this are useful because they give us options for using Classic Blue in small doses and combined with other colours that show it off to best advantage. Who would have thought that a lime green sofa would work so well in a room where walls and cabinets are painted in a rich blue?
If you like the colour, but don’t have a lot of money to spend, Sifrace Graphics have designed a set of Blue Moroccan Tile Stickers that go over your existing kitchen or bathroom tiles, or other flat surfaces. The decals are patterned in shades of blue and can be ordered online from Not On The High Street. where a set of 24 decals, each 10cm x 10cm, costs €25.28 with an additional €6 for delivery to Ireland. You can order them in other sizes too. They look like loads of fun, claim to be washable and are suitable for renters because you can peel them off when you move out.
See hedgeroe.com, mrcb.ie, and notonthehighstreet.com. Contact Olha on [email protected].
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