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Seeing green

 
Published March 15, 2003|Updated Aug. 31, 2005

Shamrock is the color for 2003.

It's the new yellow, which was retired in favor of a vivid yet vintage green that harks back to a gentler time, when jobs were plentiful and there were no red alerts for homeland security.

We're not talking about the latest trends on the fashion catwalks.

These are housewares colors, which have taken on increasing importance as consumers spend more time and money on their homes.

People want their homes to reflect their personalities, and that means they want color choices beyond white, beige and almond. (It was so daring just a few years ago when appliance and plumbing manufacturers introduced a variation on the beige/almond theme called biscuit!)

Fiesta, which began making colorful dishes in 1936, has its finger on the pulse of which hues are in and which are out. Each year the brand, which is owned by Homer Laughlin China Co. in Newell, W.Va., retires a color and introduces a new one.

The winning color for 2003 was shamrock, named by Betsy Wells, the chief executive officer's wife, who each year takes a close look at the latest selection and chooses a name.

The company discontinued yellow, a hue that has not sold as well as the more brilliantly colored sunflower.

Shamrock Fiestaware was on display at the annual International Housewares Show in Chicago earlier this year. The event also showcased colorful housewares from a variety of companies eager to appeal to consumers who look for hues that make them feel comfortable and secure.

Shamrock meets that need on two counts: It is reminiscent of a Fiesta color decades ago, and it is green.

"This color is very safe because it reminds you of nature and of things that will always be here. Our currency is green," said Judi Noble, art director for Homer Laughlin, who works with ceramics engineer Mike Tkach to develop the new Fiesta color each year.

Green is so popular that the Pantone Color Institute, an international arbiter of which colors will be popular in any given year, devoted an entire home furnishings palette for 2003 to that color.

Called "Renewal," the green palette includes 10 variations, ranging from sunny lime to chicory to herbal green.

But that doesn't mean greens are the only choice, or even the hottest choice, for housewares in 2003.

"The mid 1980s was the last time we saw a wholesale sweep of colors," said Pantone director Leatrice Eiseman. That was when mauve swept the nation.

Since then, women, the primary household shoppers, have gone for a wider range of colors. Pantone has eight home furnishings palettes for 2003, only one of which is devoted to a single color category.

One housewares palette is devoted to colors that remind people of their United States heritage _ garnet, blue ribbon and winter white, of course, but also military olive, faded denim and hunter green.

Another is reminiscent of the more recent past, with vintage colors that might appeal to Fiestaware collectors. That retro palette includes muted greens, pearl blues and rosy taupes.

How does the Color Institute determine which colors will be most marketable?

"It isn't just a revelation that falls out of the sky for those of us entrusted with this kind of work. We do a lot of homework," said Eiseman, who works on future palettes as far as two years in advance.

She combs the world, looking at hues and talking to other experts about the direction color is headed. Sometimes a popular traveling art exhibit will have an impact on people's preferences. Other times, as with Sept. 11, 2001, a major event will shift the dynamic dramatically.

The patriotic and heritage-associated colors were never out of style, Eiseman emphasizes.

"It's not that people haven't used them for years, but it brings them to the forefront," she said.

Adrienne Weiss, chief executive of a Chicago-based branding think tank that bears her name, said the move toward safe colors and styles is not just a function of the new fear instilled in U.S. citizens by the threat of terrorism.

"Historically, there's been a lot of fear at the turn of a century _ fear of the future, fear of change," Weiss said.

Instead of moving toward futuristic, slick tones and forms, as when 2000 was upon us, we leaned toward retro looks for comfort, she said.

Weiss said she personally would have preferred the "slickest, longest, most aerodynamic energy" in emerging colors and shapes. But she recognizes that the rest of the country wanted to take a step back.

The greening of the American color palette extends to the bathroom, where plumbing manufacturer Kohler offers sinks in two shades of green: citron, a yellow-green, and tea green, a translucent, almost-white gray-green that may tap the nation's interest in, well, green tea, a beverage now offered in every price range from supermarket brand Lipton to top-dollar gourmet blends.

At Corian, one of six colors introduced earlier this year is "willow," a sage-green and taupe mix with large particles ranging from soft white to translucent to light brown.

Even the latest colors from KitchenAid are not as "out there" as the company's colors sometimes are. KitchenAid already offers a stunning array of colorful home appliances, including pink standing mixers, whose sales help benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and cobalt blue refrigerators and red dishwashers.

KitchenAid introduced the first nonwhite standing mixers in 1954. In 1997, it brought to the Chicago housewares show chrome and copper "concept colors" (prototypes, experimental colors that designers were just trying out and that were not available for order).

"We didn't even know if we could take them to mass production," said head of marketing Brian Maynard. Those finishes on standing mixers came to market within two years of the show.

This year KitchenAid has no concept colors in its housewares display. But it does have two new hues for order. One is called "ice," a very light blue.

The second color might not be familiar to some: wasabi. It's named after a horseradish paste people eat with sushi.

It's green.

Bright shamrock is the newest color in the Fiesta line. The manufacturer discontinued a pale yellow that didn't sell well. This vivid green has connotations of nature and prosperity.

Now that green tea has become a mainstream beverage, designers used its color in a sink, matching a natural color to the natural material of lavastone, extracted from volcanic quarries in France.

Appliances in bold colors _ metallics, pink, red and blue _ are nothing new for KitchenAid, which has produced them since 1954. This year its stand mixer made its debut in wasabi green.

Willow, a new color in Corian solid-surface countertops, was inspired by the colors of the landscape and the elements of the earth, designers say: sage green, taupe, soft white, light brown.