Jan. 12, 2007
In the first weeks of the newborn calendar year, design prognosticators try to predict the complexion of consumption for the coming months. This is the time of the year for press releases saying things like “color experts and leading paint manufacturers today announced the color trends for 2007.”
Can you announce a trend? Don’t people decide buying trends with the power of their purses?
Nevertheless, design corporations and consortiums have predicted – or decided, depending on who you believe – some powerful currents running through the rivers of paint homeowners will buy this year, including the war on terror, environmental awareness and the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
In the post-9/11 U.S., they reason, more people spend time at home because the poor economy and high price of gas limits their options for entertainment — and therefore want cozier homes.
Jennifer Pufahl of Interiors by Jennifer in West Bend said the focus on comfort is still strong.
“Comfort and having people come in and feel comfortable is really important,” Pufahl said. She expects most colors to be flavored with warm, inviting tones, especially earthy greens and browns.
Outside of geopolitical events, colors leech out of similar industries. Interior design is most influenced by the popular colors in cars and fine china, according to Pufahl.
Color trends move more quickly for less permanent, less expensive items. Colored furniture stains for wood pieces move at a glacial pace compared to clothes, for example. A common solution is to try to buy timeless main pieces which can be built upon visually.
“You see things where people want flexibility and they want color in their accents,” said Nancy Lindquist, an interior designer at Decor at Your Door in Slinger. “They bring out color in their accessories.”
Lindquist, who has worked in decorating for more than 20 years, said she’s interested in the revival of popular color schemes from the 1970s.
Combinations from that decade might be showing up again in living rooms, but they’ve grown up a lot since then. A ’70s blue-brown motif, for example, now might feature a darker, espresso brown and a robin eggs’ blue to draw out a sharper contrast in the colors.
“There are only so many colors, and sooner or later everything kind of comes back,” said Bill Hemauer of Hemauer Decorating in West Bend.
Tweaking the old to make something new is part of the process. Now the ’70s looks cleaner by ditching unnecessary flourishes — that means you, dust ruffles.
“Now it’s a lot more of a cleaner, neater look,” Lindquist said. “It’s much more tailored. People are spending more time at home and they want a simpler look.”
A brown leather couch could be chameleon-ized, for example. Warm colors from the red side of the spectrum would make a inviting look, then subbed to the linen closet for something more striking.
“You could use the brighter blues with some of the browns — which is gorgeous — just to give it an accent,” Pufahl said. Blues and yellows are the only colors getting brighter, she said. All other hues will soak up a little earthy brown or green or warm red, which will be a strong influence this year.
But is it because of the 2008 Olympics being held in China, a country associated with Communism, which is associated with red?
Red is the most common color in national flags, and a popular color for sports teams, so being linked to the Olympics could definitely raise its profile.
Nicole Haase of Milwaukee writes Wisconsin sports blog Cute Sports (cutesports.blogspot.com) said red’s dominance was evident when University of Wisconsin recently defeated the cardinal-clad Arkansas Razorbacks in football and the scarlet-sporting Ohio State Buckeyes in basketball.
“I think the red is eye catching and it’s noticeable and it pops,” Haase said.
“You have to pin it on something sometimes,” Hemauer said. “Red’s a color that’s kind of timeless. We’ve sold a lot of red-type burgundies the last four, five years.”
Purple, on the other hand, is a color that is not timeless. To say nothing of interior design, where purples are often regulated to lavender, purple has been all but banished from the sporting world by teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, which in November started its first purple-less season since 1994. While the hapless Minnesota Vikings seems stuck with the color, teams in Toronto and Arizona have also ditched violet — in favor of red.
“It’s kind of a dated color,” Haase said. “I think that it started to lose appeal and I think the logos and the merchandise become less appealing to consumers.”
Haase said she’s heard of sports franchises going to interior decorators and fashion designers for marketable new colors and logos, because it’s really all about the green.
In April, Home Depot launched a line of paint which offers the exact official pantone colors of more than 125 sports teams. Haase said she personally wouldn’t go for that, but the proliferation of home improvement shows have emboldened do-it-yourselfers.
“I think that makes a big difference in terms of what people are willing to do and in terms of the risks people are willing to take,” Haase said. “I think with all these home decorating shows out there people think ‘Okay, I can do that.’”
Hemauer said most people follow these trends to some extent because they fit in with the overall look of the times (and big-ticket items like furniture and window frames) but about 25 percent of his clients totally go their own way. If your New Year’s resolution is to buck trends completely, that may be difficult.
“These designers kind of dictate what’s going to popular and those colors are used in everything from cookbooks to clothing,” Hemauer said.