No Drum Roll Please ...

No drum roll please … perhaps a celestial harp if you have one?

As 2015 draws to a close, we say goodbye to ‘Marsala’, Pantone’s 2015 colour of the year … no great loss to most of us!

Enter 2016: eagerly awaiting a colour we all recognize and might even like, we’re fobbed off with an insipid, non-committal, indecisive duo, ‘Rose Quartz & Serenity’.

“Joined together, Rose Quartz and Serenity demonstrate an inherent balance between a warmer embracing rose tone and the cooler tranquil blue, reflecting connection and wellness as well as a soothing sense of order and peace.”

… in other words, Pantone really couldn’t make up its collective mind this year and we are saddled with something so ambivalent and so benign it is likely to disappear into the atmosphere before we can apply it to our walls or hang it in our closets.

The suggested pairings to accompany these colours are equally bland: “Nostalgia Rose”, “Cloud Dancer” and “Arctic Ice” with a dash of navy blue thrown in for good measure. It looks like the stage set for the upcoming year is decidedly vague and anemic. We’ll be talking in whispers and trotting about in softly stockinged feet.

Personally, I’m not ready for a steady diet of calmness and tranquility … perhaps a dollop of it here and there, but I think we do the colours of life a great disservice by over diluting them. Bring on the vibrant indigoes, brilliant oranges and riotous reds that bring life and energy to our world.

I guess it’s a question of balance. There will always be a need for places that inspire restorative contemplation and serenity but without the richness and passion inherent in pure, saturated colour, 2016 could become one long designer nap.