“Green” Color Trends by Pantone

Bag Trends: “Green” Color Trends by Pantone

It's not easy being green but Pantone's monthly trend installment is here to educate how to be fashionably eco.


Honesty		Purposeful Purples		Vital Greens

While there used to be a time when industry was able to ignore the gloomy topic of environmental damage, the concept of product sustainability is gaining greater acceptance in our culture. Today, sustainability is no longer considered a unique feature and the eco-design approach is becoming more the norm. Companies at all levels and catering to all markets are looking to build ethically sound concepts into their products as a given rather than only being used as a marketing strategy.

Design and color trends are often directly impacted by social issues and our growing consciousness surrounding environmental concerns is no exception. Resulting from our new roles as responsible stewards of the earth, some of the individual colors and color palettes we are seeing for 2009 include the following.

Honesty

An apt subtitle for this grouping could be “designer boutique meets flea market find” as it revisits shabby chic, but it is definitely more chic than shabby. Honesty speaks of a very real attempt at recycling – creating treasure out of what was destined to become trash. Discarded ceramics and glass become artful mosaics, while re-used or natural fibers are colored with eco-friendly vegetable and/or plant dyes. Included in the recommended mixes are unbleached whites, tender greens, clouded corals, toasty warm tans and cool gray unexpectedly punctuated by velvety-red rose.

Purposeful Purples

A range of deep and intense mystic shades, from crimsons and violets to deep purples, the purple color family evokes mysticism and spiritual awareness. Whether choosing contemporary and casual styling or timeless classics, the choice of incorporating these shades into your wardrobe expresses a yearning for purpose.

Vital Greens

The preservation of the environment leads directly to the pervasive use of green. This range of colors derived from the plant world carries an ultra intensified quality and the vital energy needed to heal. These many dimensions of green include grass and lime greens that are more vibrant, to the more yellowed and subdued shades of green.

Author: Laurie Pressman (Want to become a Handbag Correspondent?)