Who else could say with authority that last season's red had more yellow, that the new black for fall is charcoal gray, that brown is so totally 15 minutes ago, and that the retina-burning acid green - currently appearing on everything from Crate & Barrel picture frames to Urban Outfitter hipster pants - has little intention of going gentle in that good night? We can thank, or blame, this universal sameness on these forecasters who sell their expertise to otherwise clueless corporations. Even new communal environments such as airports, restaurants and hospitals will share a common color scheme. This year, most every mass-produced item that finds its way into your home - be it bathroom, kitchen, bedroom or garage - will most likely fall within a limited palette.
The days when a product's color was left to the whim of a manufacturer have gone the way of cave paintings (in taupe and ecru, of course). In today's competitive consumer market, forecasters are critical to manufacturers of every stripe, advising which shade will sell the most telephones, skirts, house paint, duvet covers, toasters, nail polish, candlesticks - even automobiles. Palettes are being brewed by color forecasters anywhere from 18 months to two years before they appear on store shelves - a valuable service, without a doubt. Forecasters are so "prescient," they can tell you that by 2001, consumers will be snatching up pearlized curtains, tablecloths, even trash cans - products infused with only the faintest hint of color. Sure enough, people are already rushing out to buy azure-colored Pottery Barn pillows and navy blue couches at Z Gallerie. Last year, they saw that while green has been the alpha and omega during the 1990s, by the year 2000, blue would surface as the dominate color. This elite group of design professionals, known as color forecasters, make it their business to predict which pigments are on their way out and, most important, which are headed our way.īack in 1997, while you were stocking up on coffee-colored place mats at Bed, Bath & Beyond, color forecasters knew already that brown was yesterday's design news and gray would be all the rage in 1999.
For those of us who stay awake nights fretting that, any day now, our country will fall prey yet again to such a mean shade of green, there are professionals who can help - reassuring us that we need not fear, because an especially lovely shade of cerulean blue is on the horizon.
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