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Oh wow! It is that time again: the time that Pantone announces the color of the year for 2019. As you will recall from years past, Pantone is a corporation taste-makers and of fashion insiders which crafts palates that allow all the world’s different corporate concerns to align their offerings with each other. That way consumers can buy matching outfits and housewares in a given season, but can’t find anything that remotely matches any of it the next. Pantone’s offering last year (which is to say the 2018 color of the year) was ultraviolet, a lovely mid-range purple with some blue notes.
Purple is one of my favorite colors…but it seems like the colors are just getting better, because this year features a real winner–“living coral”, a beautiful pinkish red which looks like it is alive. Not only do I love this color…I might actually BE this color (at least if I get out of a very hot shower, or spill allergens on my delicate flesh).
Pantone usually includes lifestyle blather with its color selections, and this year is no different. According to their press kit, the pinkish orange is a “reaction to the onslaught of digital technology and social media,” which represents our collective “need for optimism and joyful pursuits [and] authentic and immersive experiences that enable connection and intimacy.”
That is a lot to load onto a color, but Living Coral fits the bill if any color does. Looking at it just makes me feel happy…like I really did get out of a hot bath and then found some money lying on the ground (although that scenario sounds less good as I look at it on the page). You can read what else Pantone has to say about their selection elsewhere, but in addition to being a near-flesh color, “Living Coral” makes me think of axolotls, sunsets, summer melons, and roses.
This last choice probably makes you scratch your head, but my favorite hybrid tea roses were created by a mad German nurseryman in the mid-sixties and both of his timeless greatest hybrids were this same extraordinary orange pink. One was named “Tropicana” (above) and it was a large showy rose which was (and is) unequaled in looks. The other (pictured below) was smaller and more delicate but it had the most heavenly aroma, which is why it was known as “Fragrant Cloud.” It was my grandmother’s favorite rose and I remember it growing all around her house (and appearing in vases within) during the halcyon summers of my youth.
I poke some fun at Pantone for their florid language and their misfires like “Sand Dollar” (a lifeless ecru from 2006 which did not even have the visual interest of a dead echinoderm), however I think they actually do a good job. Thanks Pantone for the memories of summers past. Maybe 2019 will have some of the rosy happiness of “Living Coral) and if anyone sees a shirt that color, I definitely want one (although I think I might have once had one during those same summers of yore.
The day has escaped me today, but there is still time for a short and visually potent post which I have been saving up. This is a model of the Royal Crown of the Ryukyu Kingdom, which ruled the Ryukyu Islands and unified Okinawa (and, sporadically, some other islands in the East China Sea). Located between China and Japan, the little kingdom began as a tributary state to China (which is why the crown has the characteristic shape of a Ming royal headdress. During its 400 year history, Ryukyu was generally a tributary of China, Japan, or both, until it was annexed by the Empire of Japan in 1879. After the annexation the former King of Ryuku moved to Tokyo and became a Japanese noble. He brought one crown with him (this is an exact model of the original which is at the Naha City Museum of History and is only shown on special occasions). Confusingly, a second historical crown was kept on Okinawa until the island fell to United States forces near the end of World War II and the royal treasures were hidden in a drainage ditch. An American intelligence officer “found” some of these treasures and carried them off to Boston, however they were returned during the 1950s as the friendship between Japan and the United States solidified. The Okinawa crown however was never discovered…so if you find a thing like this in a Boston yard sale you should buy it up (although you may also be sucked into strange diplomatic games with the United States and Japan). In addition to a large gold hairpin, the Naha crown has 288 ornaments made of gold, silver, crystal, and coral.
ferrebeekeeper 