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Color Trends
"Who exactly decides the hottest color of the year?"
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to this Commentary!
By Stephanie Martija
I’ve always wondered – who exactly decides the hottest color of the year? One year it’s quartz pink, then it’s orange, and a few years later, blue makes a comeback. Once that color takes hold – it’s on everything - handbags, shoes, shirts, scarves, jewelry…you name it.
So how does that happen? I ask my peers hoping to get a straight answer, but it seems that they are just as clueless as I am when it comes to understanding who dictates color trends.
TEEN 1 (on tape)
Probably the president. I don’t know.
TEEN 2 (on tape)
I think it’s decreed by God and he tells the Pope, and then the Pope tells the fashion execs. It’s like the trickle down effect from God, and he’s like, “Okay, this year the color is orange,” and the people are like, “The color is orange you guys!” and everyone’s like, “Okay.”
STEPHANIE
Okay, so my peers have some interesting answers, but my next step is a google search…
Stephanie (on tape)
So, now I’m doing a google search…hopefully trying to find the latest color trend of the year. I’m going to start off by typing the color orange - I heard that was a really big color this year… let’s see what comes up….typing…
So now I’m going into fashion trends for 2004…fashion trends, colors and fabrics…Okay, the color palette for spring/summer 2004 – let’s take a look… typing…
STEPHANIE
After searching through a lot of junk and advertising, I finally find what I’m looking for. It turns out that there are companies whose only purpose is marketing color. Christine Chow works for one of them. She’s a color representative at the Color Association of the U.S. She says there’s a logical reason why one color gets picked up by all the retailers.
CHRISTINE (on tape)
The forecasting industry is rather small, there are not that many color forecasts or trend forecasts floating out there, but a lot of the major retailers and manufacturers will subscribe to the same forecasts, and that’s why it’s so easy for the same trend to spread really far.
STEPHANIE
Color forecasters have been spreading trends for a long time – some since 1915. Basically, these companies market books to retailers, which forecast what colors are going to be popular. Christine says creating a color fad is not just a simple formula – it’s based on a lot of different elements.
CHRISTINE
A lot of people think color forecasting is just about prediction but there’s an element of a self fulfilling cycle in there, because we’re not just trying to predict what colors will be hot in the next year or two. Which is what a lot of people believe. We’re trying to put out colors that are new and fresh for the marketplace. You’re not going to buy a shirt that’s pink if you had 10 pink shirts in your wardrobe, so we try to think what consumers may want or need next. Color forecasting and trend forecasting is not only about intuition; there’s also an element of experience and science that goes into it.
STEPHANIE
The science involves knowing psychological responses to color, like the way people associate green with environmentalism, and the way red gets more attention than purple. Christina says that it has been proven that some colors catch more attention than others.
It’s too bad my peers have no idea they are often victims to color marketing. We still have fantasies the season’s color palette is invented in a spontaneous way.
TEEN 1 (on tape)
Well, a lot of times I think they take somebody in the fashion industry who’s a celebrity, who is fashionably influential, like Brittany Spears. Everybody knows who she is, and so maybe they look at how she dresses and they can pinpoint something that maybe also goes in line with their marketing and what they want - like their objectives. And so they can put that together and say, “Ohh…what do you know, everybody’s wearing blue,” or something like that. Maybe a combination.
TEEN 2 (on tape)
Most people in America watch a lot of TV, so anything you see on the TV, might be…like a little girl watching the videos, I think the video might influence her to wear that certain color or certain type of style of clothes, she sees another person wearing them, because she sees getting attention, so she wants to get the same amount of attention, I guess, from boys maybe.
STEPHANIE
If you were wondering what colors are predicted to hit big this year, Christina says it’s yellow and green.
I can deal with the green, but I’m not too sure about yellow…
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