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What best-dressed walls will be wearing

The economy, demographics and values influence color trends, says a forecaster.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF, Times Correspondent
Published January 4, 2008

Quick: What do clear blue, tropical green and cranberry red have in common?

Crazy as it might sound, they are the hottest paint color trends for 2008.

Remember the movie The Devil Wears Prada? The fashion editor played by Meryl Streep lectured her assistant, Anne Hathaway, about how the shade of blue in her sweater made it through a complex evolutionary process before hitting the lowly retail racks.

It kind of works that way with home paint colors, too.

Color forecasters draw from a wide swath of unlikely predictors, from the state of the economy to the political climate, in determining what's hot and what's not in the year ahead.

Debbie Zimmer is a paint color expert with the Paint Quality Institute, a Philadelphia paint product testing association. A former chemist with a degree in marketing, she tracks paint fashion the way a Vogue editor follows couture.

Zimmer factors in numerous influences when looking ahead at color trends, including economic conditions, social changes, technology, the workplace and political climate.

If the economy "spits and falters," Zimmer says, colors tend to be less vibrant and "gray up a bit," whereas in boom times shades brighten up. The economy these days isn't so great. That's why the 2008 palette incorporates more earth tones, blacks and whites and shades like cranberry rather than hot-tamale red.

Social demographics, particularly how we live, also influence color, she says. So do values.

"We're seeing more fragmented lifestyle trends, many polar opposites," she says, "from McMansion living to homes that are all about a decreasing footprint."

The one common thread she perceives is a "return to family." The idea is that families are spending more time at home, working on crafts together, cooking and talking.

"It's all about having dinner together as a family again," she says.

On the home decor runway for the upcoming season?

Zimmer sees three distinct color palettes: "go green," "sophisticated elegance" and "crewel colors."

-Go green is drawn from the growing ecological movement and includes a palette of fern green, beige, clear blue and adobe brown.

"Think of colors associated with the emphasis on outdoor living spaces," Zimmer says. "People have really extended their focus to creating rooms that are indoor/outdoor. These colors really showcase that."

Linda Cox, an interior decorator for Robb & Stucky in Tampa, who frequently lectures on color, says that the go-green palette may have its roots in the colors of the American Northwest, spread across the map by Starbucks and Nordstrom, which use those colors. Both are based in Seattle.

In home design, palette is "very much about peace and achieving a Zen look," she says.

- Sophisticated elegance, the second 2008 color, is a black and white palette that also moves into grays. It looks great on crown molding and doors, in living rooms and bedrooms, Zimmer says.

She predicts that consumers on the cutting edge will embrace the look. These are people she calls "the first adoptees," those who like the latest technology and typically like the trendiest colors.

- Crewel colors derives from the family nesting trend and incorporates colors found in tapestry and needlework like cranberry, pumpkin and deep blue.

"We're even seeing these colors showing up in the fabric industry, in high-end catalogs," Zimmer says. "I'm seeing beautiful crewel-inspired pillows and other high-end needlework designs showing up in Christmas catalogs."

Cox says trendy home color has come a long way since the avocado green and harvest golds of the 1970s and the peach and sea foam green fad of the 1980s.

"It's morphed into a more sophisticated palette," she says. "Every color is tinged with something else and much more complicated. Of course, you still see the primary colors in contemporary design."

Overall, Americans change their interior paint colors every four to six years - more if you're a home-fashion diva.

Feel like changing out last year's chocolate brown paint color for this year's earthier shade of adobe?

Go for it, Cox says.

"It's the least expensive way to change the visual impact of a room," she explains. "There's nothing simpler that can change a room more greatly."

Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com.

[Last modified January 3, 2008, 08:19:38]