“An unconventional colour for an unconventional time,” is how the colour gurus at Pantone described its recently announced 2023 colour of the year – Viva Magenta.
Just like the Status Quan Lazy Sundays sleepwear set in Viva Magenta (burgundy) pictured above, the colour is a rich red hue that strikes a neutral balance between warm and cool undertones.
Pantone, which invented the first standardised colour-matching system in 1963, has been predicting the dominant colour of the year for 23 years and generally they are spot-on. Not only because they do their research, but because when Pantone predicts, the rest of the fashion world listens.
For better or worse, when the doyennes at Pantone determine their colour of the year, it helps provide designers with some direction and a starting point from which to articulate their next collection.
It’s often the reason why certain colours go in and out of fashion. It’s also the reason why you might suddenly see a certain colour become more dominant in fashion collections, and subsequently flow into the beauty industry, interior design and even graphic design and packaging.
Pantone says with Viva Magenta, the red speaks to a desire to take on new challenges and try the unconventional, while the blue undertones help soften the colour.
In her book Colour: Travels through the Paintbox, Victoria Finlay says the colour magenta was invented by English chemists in 1859 and was named after the battle for Magenta, a town in Milan, Italy.
We think the versatile shade is universally flattering across ages, genders and skin tones.
Previous colours of the year have been:
2022 Very Peri:
2021 Illuminating (yellow) and Ultimate Grey:
2020 Classic Blue:
