Fall colors!

Upon noticing that the Pantone Color Institute has selected ten colors to represent the gist of the Fall 2009 collections going down the runway this week at Bryant Park, the first two things through my head were 1. Visions of color scientists in white lab coats and goggles doing experiments in a tastefully decorated laboratory and 2. “What was their methodology?”

Well, I have this disappointed feeling that the Color Institute doesn’t involve many bunsen burners after opening their pdf (speaking of pdfs: Pdfs are not the way to go, companies looking to improve your internet presence. Anything that makes the visitor open a program other than Firefox is not going to help you, it’s going to make you look like your web people are either geriatric or incredibly lazy.). Pantone does quote some statistics, which is almost a science, on what percentage of designers are using a particular color in their collections.

Left to right, then top to bottom:

1. Iron (Pantone 18-1306): Percentage of designers who used this color, 16.5. Designer proponents: Carmen Marc Valvo, Reem Acra, Charlotte Ronson.

2. Purple Heart (Pantone 18-3520): 15.6. Shaun Kearney, Elie Tahari.

3. Majolica Blue (Pantone 19-4125): 12.8. Lela Rose, Maria Pinto, Brian Reyes.

4. American Beauty (Pantone 19-1759): 11.9. Alice Temperley, Yigal Azrouel.

5. Honey Yellow (Pantone 16-1143): 10.1. Christian Cota, James Coviello.

6. Rapture Rose (Pantone 17-1929): 9.2. Tadashi Shoji, Douglas Hannant, Tia Cibani.

7. Burnt Sienna (Pantone 17-1544): 8.2. Rebecca Taylor, Alvin Valley, Christian Siriano.

8. Warm Olive (Pantone 15-0646): 7.3. Ella Moss, Thuy Diep, Adam Lippes.

9. Nomad (Pantone 16-1212): 5.6. Tracy Reese, David Rodriguez, Catherine Malandrino.

10. Creme Brulee (Pantone 13-1006): 2.8. Nanette Lepore, Wichy Hassan, Kimora Lee Simmons.

Pantone seems to be pretty into the whole reality design thing – in addition to its mentioning Christian Siriano (who won Project Runway in the fourth season) and Kimora Lee Simmons, they have a little “color advice” segment in which the advisors are Tim Gunn (Project Runway), Nina Garcia (Project Runway), India Hicks (Top Design), Clinton Kelly (What Not to Wear) and Simon Doonan (on America’s Next Top Model a couple of times and recently married to maker of stuff I love and Top Design host Jonathan Adler. Oh, and also Doonan’s creative director for Barney’s.).

I’m pretty into this palette, especially warm olive. Contrast it with Pantone’s Spring 2009 colors assembled last September, which all fall into the category of “shades of bike shorts I owned when I was eight.”

Via Notcot