scostumista: ILLUMINATING AND ULTIMATE GRAY

For over 20 years, Pantone’s Color of the Year has influenced product development and purchasing decisions in multiple industries, including fashion, home furnishings, and industrial design, as well as product packaging and graphic design.

As every year Pantone announces the ‘it’ colour for the coming year, and this year it is: PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray + PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating. It's not the first time that Pantone choosed a mix of two colours, the colours chosen for 2016 if I remember correctly were the Rose Quarz (a light and delicate pink) and Serenity (a light blue).

But for this year a marriage of this colour conveying a message of strength and hopefulness that is both enduring and uplifting. Two independent colours that highlight how different elements come together to support one another, best express the mood for Pantone Color of the Year 2021. Practical and rock solid but at the same time warming and optimistic, the union of PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray + PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating is one of strength and positivity.

It is a story of colour that encapsulates deeper feelings of thoughtfulness with the promise of something sunny and friendly. A message of happiness supported by fortitude, the combination of PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray + PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating is aspirational and gives us hope. We need to feel that everything is going to get brighter – this is essential to the human spirit. PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating is a bright and cheerful yellow sparkling with vivacity, a warming yellow shade imbued with solar power. PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray is emblematic of solid and dependable elements which are everlasting and provide a firm foundation.

The colours of pebbles on the beach and natural elements whose weathered appearance highlights an ability to stand the test of time, Ultimate Gray quietly assures, encouraging feelings of composure, steadiness and resilience. A combination of colour whose ties to insight, innovation and intuition, and respect for wisdom, experience, and intelligence inspires regeneration, pressing us forward toward new ways of thinking and concepts.