Like a swig of orange juice to rev up the morning, a splash of orange can liven up a room.
And that, designers and trend watchers say, could be just what we need.
“It’s a color that is uplifting, stimulating and enlivening,” says Barbara Richardson, director of color marketing for ICI Paints, parent of Glidden.
Her company just named Full Bloom, a citrus-inspired orange, the color for 2005. “Full Bloom has the ability to raise our spirits and to make us feel optimistic–a quality that is in high demand right now.”
Furniture manufacturers were under the influence of orange this month at the International Home Furnishings Market in High Point, N.C. At Thayer Coggin, a company known for contemporary styling, it was the predominant color in the showroom.
Brilliant shades boasting names such as tangerine and orangeade made the space cheerful and lively, company spokeswoman Dot Coggin says. “With the world situation, we need colors to make us feel brighter,” she notes. But orange? Does the color conjure up images of home or Home Depot? A bright hallway or a Halloween horror?
“People do have this concept that orange is this scary color,” designer Susan Sargent says. After all, it is the color of safety vests and traffic cones. But by any other name, orange derivatives are luscious and warm.
The problem, Sargent says, is that the single label can’t cover the spectrum orange encompasses.
“Orange isn’t a word I use. I recommend pumpkin, mango. We can see 7 million colors, but we don’t have words for all of them,” says Sargent, author of a vivid new decorating guide titled “The Comfort of Color.” Think peach and paprika, sunset and salmon, terra cotta and tiger lily.
“There is an orange for everyone,” says Andrea Banda, director of merchandising for Rowe Furniture. “It’s approachable, it’s friendly, it’s informal.”
Like Thayer Coggin, Rowe’s High Point showroom was awash in orange with at least a dozen fabrics, both solids and patterns, in orange tones. It was paired with robin’s egg blue in a retro-inspired stripe and with black for a contemporary look. In the right shade, it can go with just about any color or style.
“It can be classic if you want to use it in a traditional setting. Or, dial it up a few notches for contemporary,” Richardson says. The orange family has been in the marketplace for a few years, used in apparel, sporting goods, home electronics and even small kitchen appliances. In tracking industrial design, graphics on Web sites and magazine design, Banda has watched orange escalate.
It’s been applied on high-end furniture design for a few years too.
Now, Richardson says, toned-down shades are hitting the mass market. “It has morphed into something acceptable for home.”
———-
Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
