Enough gloom and doom: cheerful and sunny yellow is predicted to be the influential colour of 2009.
Pantone, which provides colour standards to design industries, cites "mimosa", a vibrant shade of yellow illustrated by the flowers of some mimosa trees as well as a brunch-favourite cocktail, as its top shade of the new year.
In general, Pantone expects the public to embrace many tones of optimistic yellow.
"I think it's just the most wonderful symbolic colour of the future," says Pantone Colour Institute executive director Leatrice Eiseman.
"It's invariably connected to warmth, sunshine and cheer — all the good things we're in dire need of right now."
In the spring fashion collections previewed earlier in the northern autumn for retailers and editors, pops of yellow brightened the runways of designers Carolina Herrera — who called her favourite shade marigold — Badgley Mischka, Zac Posen and Michael Kors, among others.
Kors even included a retro yellow polka-dot bikini that clearly hearkened back to a more upbeat time. The fashion world embraced orange a few years ago and that has evolved into yellow, which had already been gaining popularity in the home decor market, too.
"People know yellow lightens up the atmosphere," Ms Eiseman says.
It helps that the colour looks good in florals and has a close association with nature, a driving force in the marketplace right now, and it complements current favourites green and purple. ("Blue iris", a purple-tinged blue, has been colour of the year this year.)
"I'd say you should get used to seeing yellow in places you're not used to seeing it," Ms Eiseman says.
AP
