Honeysuckit: The only color in the world.

Behold!!!  It's my obligatory post about Pantone's color of the year for 20'leven!  I'm chucking my deuces up for 2010 and hoping the door doesn't hit Tur-qwaz on the way out. 

Get ready for Honeysuckle 18-2120  being pink despite everything you've ever learned about Honeysuckle being yellow or white.  Yellow was the color of the year a few years ago - it was Mimosa.  Pantone of course doesn't repeat colors to close together because that would be stupid.  Oh wait...

I generally think of Pantone as a sad sellout of a company that now may be destroying the Gulf Coast in a theory I made up but for sure sells overpriced bullshit in their name to assholes (read: some graphic design-y people but not the ones who read this blog of course.) who think it's cool.  Hence the gift bags and wall paint and credit cards and eyeglasses and dildos.  I'm kidding.  They haven't invented the dildos.  Yet...  People already get off on their nerdy Pantone love so it's only a matter of time until they take that to the next level.  But however much their marketing department sucks they pretty much have the monopoly on color for the world so we're kinda stuck with them for awhile.  Until I build my empire.  Or they offer me a job.  [MS Sidebar: Can I be the Urban Decay of color standards?  Dream.  Fucking. Job.  But enough about me...]

via Pantone

There was either a lot of swooning or barfing about the choice but not a lot of discussion about it.  I'LL DO IT!!  *frantically waves hand in air*  I love over-analyzing things of little consequence and I've been stuck at home for days because of this gawdamn miracle of ice and snow so what the hell else do I have to do?   Besides, it's my blogging duty to talk about it.  Every time I mention Honeysuckit Pantone sends me one tiny thread of a swatch so soon I'll have a full one of my very own!  Squee!!

Lonny

Pantone may be trying to take over the world but I think they got this one right (mostly).   As a matter of fact I think this was an obvious choice.  I don't know how you could actually read a magazine or a blog or look at a catalog within the past twelve months and NOT see pink everywhere...??  Are we even all looking at the same internet?  

via Design Guide

Color forecasting usually involves at least half a dozen "stories" many with a recurring theme.  That recurring theme - in this case a hot pink or Pantone's yearly color declaration - gives consumers an easily digestible morsel of otherwise complex market trends.  Consumers love to consume these empty design calories. 

mmmhhh....  so good it's almost like real food!!

Pantone's marketing department is possibly a group of evil geniuses.  Of course they have us all wrapped around their little pinkie finger (did you see what I did there?! hohoooo!) because people go apeshit over this kind of color.  You don't have to like shades of pinks but you have to accept the way consumer trends fall and respect the power of the pink.  And by power I mean of course the majority of disposable income-having lady persons who adore pink, read cutesy blogs and like to buy lots of clothes.  Oh and have vaginas.  I bet vaginas are going to have a big 20'leven too.  And boobs.  I'm already cringing at the future cross promotion of Pantone's Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure of Breast Cancer and Lackluster Interiors In Need of A Pop of Color!  Next October will make you want to hang yourself.  


Leatrice Eiseman (great name - read her color blog here), Pantone's executive director says

A dynamic reddish pink, Honeysuckle is encouraging and uplifting. It elevates our psyche beyond escape, instilling the confidence, courage and spirit to meet the exhaustive challenges that have become part of everyday life.

In times of stress, we need something to lift our spirits. Honeysuckle is a captivating, stimulating color that gets the adrenaline going – perfect to ward off the blues.

Lonny

To ward off the blues??  LOLs Leatrice!  Is that a tongue-in-cheek reference to how dated Turquoise already is (was) or the fact that our country is still in the shitter?!  I can't tell but I applaud your attempt at being saucy.  In summation: Your life still sucks, think pink!


She continues:

 Honeysuckle derives its positive qualities from a powerful bond to its mother color red, the most physical, viscerally alive hue in the spectrum.

Miles Redd.  You know you went apeshit when you first saw this forever ago.

Red as a mother color?  Are you trying to work in some sort of mama grizzly/blood libel reference too??   That would really round out your awkward explanation and fit with my Pantone-is-involved-in-a-conservative-conspiracy-theory theory.


Horrible copy aside, pink does provide a burst of visual energy whether you like it or not.  It does take balls to wear a pink tie or paint a wall hot pink.  Just like the generation born of the Great Depression pink certainly has the energy and strength to inspire the country!!!!!!!!  Calm down Leatrice - it's just a color, you're not bringing back the middle class.  However, it is a welcome foil to the solid neutrals and cool greys that make classics feel new again.  It's the primary color in the floral orgasmisplosion of this year and hipsters love it but only ironically.  If Domino was Turquoise, Lonny is Honeysuckle and you KNOW Lonny was everywhere this year whether you read it or not.   Though I agree with the color family I would have preferred a different shade of pink.  I wish that Pantone would have gone less one-dimensional Pepto Junior League pool party and a more yellowed acidic pink but maybe I'm just rebelling against the avalanche of bubblegum that is soon to bury us all in sticky sweetness. 


But it didn't have to end up like this.  At first I was excited by all the champagne, blush and apricot that started appearing last winter.  

board by city sage

It soon moved to the tangerine florals of Spring:

Lonny

And then the over-saturation colors of vintage everything made my inner polanerd happy (kinda but not really).   

Karen Elson in Foam magazine via Fashion Gone Rogue

Thank you Christina Hendricks.  

No seriously, thank you.

You're hawt and this was your year. 

Medicina Rossa via Behance

Maybe I was all tripped out because I wish we would have stopped somewhere around here: warm, earthy and vibrant.  But noooooo.  Y'all had to keep pushing it to straight up PANK.  (That's how you say pink here in the South.)

Oh RiRi.  How interesting that your video and song encapsulates both the color AND subsequent emotion surrounding my thoughts on pink.  At first you were so fresh and bright and energetic.  I loved you like you were a hot pie and we danced and sang in the car like madwomen.  

Theo Altenberg via But Does It Float

Matt Moore who pwned everything last year

Omigawd color explosions!  In your fucking face multicolor florals!  

via seesaw

The color is so sharp it makes my teeth hurt just like when RiRi sings the chorus.  It's a good hurt though.  

Desire to Inspire

Hold me like that pink pillow.  It's starting to feel right... 

board via coco + kelley

Little Shop

more Lonny pinkfest via sfgirlbybay

two from city sage

And then it's everywhere - all over the radio and every time I read a blog.  That's okay though because I'm still turning you up really loud to dance and feel like you're the only color I'll ever love. 

Nuevo Estilo via Automatism

Perhaps if you combine it correctly a pink pillow can still make you feel like a man??  I don't know, I'm stretching here...

Kate Spade holiday 2010

Little Shop

Get ready for the cobalt explosion via StyleCaster

Desire to Inspire

overdyed rugs via Real Simple

Indeed you really are the only color in the world.  A little bit goes a long way.  A really really long way.  

J. Crew Spring from here

You're right - I am starting to feel like your puce prisoner of the night, RiRi.  My ears are bleeding from your incessant screeching and I can't handle this ice cream cone of an outfit.

[insert Lilly Pulitzer shit here but I just can't bring myself to actually waste time hunting down an image.  Just imagine every too tan middle-aged yuppie lady you see in the summer.]

David Alhadeff via Design*Sponge

MAKE.  ME.  FEEL.  Like I'm going to barf if I see anymore pink.  Really, it was fun while it lasted but I think I'm done now.   I don't want to hear that song ever again and just compiling this blog post made me never want to see pink again either.   

In the wrong hands we're dangerously close to this:

evil. I'm like the Dennis Miller of obscure pop culture and design-y subreferences

We still have another 12 months of this shit.  


Fuck.  me. 


Preferably not with a Pantone-specified dildo.