What lies behind Pantone's color of the year 2024?

‍

Whoever says they don't know cerulean blue is either lying or simply no longer deserves your attention.

This shade of bright blue became iconic thanks to Miranda Prisley’s sharp explanation to her trainee Andrea in The Devil Wears Prada (2006). The editor-in-chief of Runway magazine traces the evolution of the color from its beginnings (in Oscar De La Renta's fashion shows) to its decline (worn by the intern herself)in a mere few instants and brings cerulean to literary fame.

What perhaps few know is that this same color was the first one Pantone chose as the color of the year, back in 1999.

PANTONE LLC, the company that owns the eponymous color space used in various industries, has indeed started in 1999 the tradition of nominating a “Colour of the [following] Year” during the month of December, based on continuously flowing conversation among a group of color-attuned people, with different backgrounds, who bring their knowledge and real experiences in the pursuit of a choice.

If 2023 color was the stunning Viva Magenta 18-1750 TCX, the 2024 one distances itself from the exuberance of that fuchsia red and unveils itself in the soft nuance of Peach Fuzz 13-1023.

‍

‍

According to the Executive Director of Pantone Color Institute, Laetrice Eiseman, this shade sends us back to the need of connection and warmth between ourselves, a kind of hymn to kindness, which the stressed and burned out society do need.

It might be a little sad thinking that we need someone to tell us to embrace a kinder way of life, but if this is the only working way to nourish our heart with respect and friendliness towards each other, why not just to make this tip ours?

‍

‍

The smoothness of Peach Fuzz aims to enriches hearts, wants to convey the need to linger on the little things, which are ultimately not so little, and to aside for at least a second the unreasonable desire to have what we lack in order to focus on the silent preciousness of all that we do have. The brightness of a glance, the depth of a hug, the tenderness of a whispered thought.

Announcing Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2024, Elley Cheng, Pantone Vice President, presents this color as “a fresh approach to a new softness. An appealing peach hue softly nestled between pink and orange, PANTONE 13-1023 Peach Fuzz inspires belonging, recalibration, and an opportunity for nurturing to conjuring up an air of calm, offering us a space to be, feel, and heal and to flourish from”.

‍

‍

Fashionably speaking, it was already Chloé in its Fall 2012 Ready-to-Wear Collection that had made the peach color the star of its garments, so effectively timeless, so incredibly Chloé with its sweet and soft garments. And I’d dare to say this shade is very Jacquemus' style, in its assertive yet elegant attitude, which impresses without the exaggeration typical of many other brands.

‍

So let us embrace this suggestion, dress ourselves in peach and welcome a version of ourselves at ease in the world, grateful, fresh and flavorful like that melt-in-your-mouth summer scent.

‍