The Blu Print: Falling Colors

How is it that all the fashion designers all seem to know what colors are going to be in during any given season?

Do they all get together somewhere in a secret fashion meeting and say, “This year, we shall use cream and no other color”? If that were the way it worked, then those who design jewelry, fashion accessories like scarves and shoes or purses would never be in style.

Fashion in the Movies

As quoted in The Devil Wears Prada, maybe it is a result of hard work of those who work in the industry to ensure that the rest of us are semi-fashionable.

Miranda Priestly: [Miranda and some assistants are deciding between two similar belts for an outfit. Andy sniggers because she thinks they look exactly the same] Something funny?

Andy Sachs: No. No, no. Nothing's... You know, it's just that both those belts look exactly the same to me. You know, I'm still learning about all this stuff and, uh...

Miranda Priestly: 'This... stuff'? Oh. Okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select... I don't know... that lumpy blue sweater, for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent... wasn't it who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it, uh, filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff.

Believe It or Not

Believe it or not, there is a secret meeting of the color wizards in the world. Twice a year, a clandestine gathering takes place in some isolated, undisclosed European capital. This secret group consists of representatives from various nations’ color standards groups. These select few are responsible for creating the palette for the upcoming season. The colors are said to represent the spirit of the time or age of the current society. It is quoted that Honeysuckle was chosen in 2012 because the people needed their spirits uplifted, and honeysuckle is an uplifting color.

While all of these lofty thoughts are intriguing, how do the simple folks who create adornments and accessories gain the information necessary to add to the zeitgeist of the current trends?

Pantone Color System

Enter, the wonderful world of Pantone. Since they are the company that sponsors these covert meetings, they are the company that makes the declaration of the Color of the Year. They also produce a beautifully, rich book of colors that is the mainstay of all graphic designers, fashion experts and interior designers. These books are heavily expensive, and they require regular updates to stay current, but they are a beautiful way to work with color.

The Pantone Color Matching system standardized the color system for printing. This made the printing of colors true when using CMYK, which is typical in print media. This is the use of four colors, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. The proper mixing of these three primaries give all the colors we see in print. The use of black is necessary in order to get a true color, since these three colors will not give a true black. When someone gives a printer a design, they could be asked to submit it in CMYK format rather than the more typical RGB format. If you are interested in more information on printing and graphic design, there is a wealth of information by googling graphic design and printing. Pantone now offers the RGB formula for some of their colors.

Pantone has insisted that they held the copyright to their list of color codes and pigment values. This is not possible because the copyright laws do not cover this type of information, and their lists are not copyrighted. They do have the copyright to their books and other print material, but color lists can be distributed without a problem.

Falling Colors

Here are the colors that are in the fall lineup of fashion. The 2013 Color of the Year is Emerald.

One thing you might notice is that the fall colors are the muted counterparts to the spring color lineup.

While the 2014 Spring colors have not been announced yet, you can be sure that they will follow the mood of the global market.

The colors are announced early in the season, which gives designers a lot of time to work on their latest creations as long as they hustle. As a designer of jewelry or other fashion accessories, you can stay on top of the upcoming mood by watching the fashion layouts in Vogue or any other true fashion magazine. Just remember, once it is published, the industry has moved on to the next thing, but you will get mileage out of those who read the magazines and go looking for those designs.

These JCUIN members are already on top of the fall color theme with their creations. They will surely find a fashionable place in someone’s wardrobe with these winning designs.