Lively, energizing, joyful. It's Pantone's Color of the Year for 2019: Living Coral.
Each year the Pantone Color Institute sifts through its findings on fashion, art, travel, and product trends and picks a color of the year: a shade that embodies the zeitgeist, the expression of the current mood and attitude.
Next year's happiness-boosting shade conjures images of snorkeling above a vibrant reef or admiring a sunset. Living Coral (officially known as "Pantone 16-1546") is described in the global color authority's press release as an "animating and life-affirming shade of orange with a golden undertone symbolizing our innate need for optimism and joyful pursuits."
“Color enhances and influences the way we experience life,” said Laurie Pressman, Vice President of the Pantone Color Institute. “As a shade that affirms life through a dual role of energizing and nourishing, Pantone 16-1546 Living Coral reinforces how colors can embody our collective experience and reflect what is taking place in our global culture at a moment in time.”
The warm and welcoming shade replaces 2018's ultra-regal and futuristic purple, Ultra Violet and comes at a time when the travel and beauty industries are turning their focus to the plight of the world's coral reefs and "Ocean-Safe" sunscreens.
"Living Coral emits the desired, familiar, and energizing aspects of color found in nature. In its glorious, yet unfortunately more elusive, display beneath the sea, this vivifying and effervescent color mesmerizes the eye and mind. Lying at the center of our naturally vivid and chromatic ecosystem, Pantone Living Coral is evocative of how coral reefs provide shelter to a diverse kaleidoscope of color," the press release continued.
2019 also marks Pantone Color of the Year's 20th anniversary and to celebrate the brand has partnered with Tribute Portfolio, Marriott International's "indie-spirited" hotel group and EyeSwoon's Athena Calderone to create an immersive pop-up tribute to the Color of the Year 2019 starting at this week's Miami's Art Basel and then traveling to The Alida Hotel in Savannah, Georgia, and finally The Slaak Rotterdam in the Netherlands next year.
The announcement follows other Color of the Year reveals from brands including Benjamin Moore's "calming" gray Metropolitan and Sherwin Williams' warm terracotta orange hue, Cavern Clay.
