What Color Speaks to You?

In 2014 I was completing my third book, That Blaisdell Blood: A Novel.  It was a fictionalized story of my mother’s family, the Blaisdell’s, who came to this country in 1635.  They landed at Pemaquid Point in what is now Maine.  That Blaisdell Blood tells the story of how the family grew with the country, all set against the backdrop of the inauguration of our first woman President—a Blaisdell woman. 

            When I started writing about the inaugural ball I needed to describe the gowns worn by two women, the President and her sister, her closest advisor.  As with each of the traditions and customs of the Presidential inauguration, which form the connective tissue of That Blaisdell Blood, I did extensive research on gowns worn by First Ladies to their Presidential Inaugural Balls.  Martha Washington started the show with a heavily embroidered yellow dress.  Since then, preferences have been for creams, reds, whites and, seemingly, every possible shade of blue.  What finally struck me was that the color clearly missing was—gray.    So, I dressed both my main characters in shades of gray.  Since then I have been pleased to note a proliferation of grays in furniture, paint and all manner of interior decoration. 

            Certainly, I did not start this trend, but I may very well have been a victim of one.  It seems that the colors we like, while static and tied with our psychology, are not the same as the colors we buy, which are set by fashion and trend marketers that we neither see nor know.  What we do know is that suddenly all those avocado appliances end up in our kitchen, orange throw pillows are hurled all over our couches, and pink purses, shoes and wool shrugs are on our person whether we like that color or not.   

            It turns out that the hot marketing colors for 2020 are being determined now, in London, by people whom you would not recognize if they were on the from page of TIME magazine.  Take an elevator to the seventh floor of the Royal College of Art and you will find Editor David Shah of “Pantone View Color Panel” meeting with European (and occasionally American) designers to decide which 64 colors will be arranged in nine different pallets for marketing two years hence.  These people are no light weight fashionistas.  They are looking at every aspect of current geopolitical, sociological, economic and scientific thinking trying to find the direction that human thought is going. 

            Whether they see color as a predictor, reflection or bromide for the human condition, their goal is to come up with the hues that will satisfy a need and then sell the daylights out of them.   Those sales start with the three-ring binder that the Royal Academy will produce, which costs around $800.  That is a hefty investment, but how else will Mary Kay know whether to sell cosmetics in the neutral, pastel or gem tone category?  How will Lowe’s know if it should stock twelve shades of green or fifty shades of gray?  Even social media venues, like Pinterest and Facebook, will choose their logo colors using Shah’s recommendations.  Maybe Henry Ford was right when he said you could but any color car you wanted as long as it was black.  The Pantone View Color Panel will tell us all who is right.

            Do you have a favorite color?  It probably tells you something about the internal you.  Have you recently purchased a case for your iphone?  That probably tells you something about marketing decisions made two years ago in London’s Hyde Park.

            Enjoy the colors of the rainbow and keep the faith.