IHA News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Deborah A.Teschke
Manager, Media Relations & Communications
847-692-0110

Forecasters Reveal That the Future of Color Is Not What It Used To Be

CHICAGO (March 18, 2008)—“The world and all of us are changing, so creating trends keep consumers interested,” opened Lee Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, in her second seminar “Fashioning the Forecasts” at the 2008 International Home + Housewares Show. In this sequel to her color trends seminar on Monday, March 17, she offered details on how fashion influences color, with new twists in the market that change the future of color as we have known it.

One of the leading indicators for color in homes is fashion, but it is now only one of the leading indicators for where color directions are heading. Re-engineering colors every month in the fashion magazines does not work for housewares, so it is important to judge the longevity of a fashion color before it becomes a trend.

Giving advice on how she watches the fashion market, Eiseman noted, “With fashion shows twice each year, I use the Rule of Three: if I see the same color three seasons in a row, I know it will lead to a trend that makes its way into home, consumer and electronic goods. This does not extend onto to one color solutions, but to color combos and how they are combined.”

Eiseman’s recommendation for those who want to track trends on their own is to pick up trends in other industries: review magazines or better yet, visit websites such as sale.com or elle.com with up-to-the-minute runway shows. The Pantone Color Report shows the top 10 colors twice a year via www.pantone.com, while the Pantone View Color Planner offers broader views of 2009 and 2010.

The popularity of consumer products has actually turned the equation of “fashion first” around. Said Eiseman, “Now we look at the way Apple uses color to check out a trend. Their vibrant silhouettes of the iPod a few years ago founded a fashion trend, all base on what Apple started. Now sports and music, as well as fashion, have been inspired by these silhouettes, which have evolved into patterned silhouettes vs. color. Everything today is interrelated.”

Of the multiple influences on today’s color choices, art, travel, the media and social issues are all key. Japanese art and Anime have spawned irreverent color combinations. Eiseman explained that if you work with young audiences, they are your current or next customers; they look at color differently due to these pervasive and popular images of color mixes. The inspiration of travel is now often related to current events.

Eiseman pointed out that last year she presented Chinoiserie as a color palette because of the Beijing Olympics. Green continues to be popular because of its attachment to the green movement, while red has been connected with the social causes of AIDS via singer and activist Bono, and heart disease in women via celebrity support at the Academy Awards. “Red actually spans many influences, as it is the classic housewares color,” according to Eiseman.

Noting that she was “blown away” by co-presenter Maureen Welton’s color sense, Eiseman introduced Welton, president and creative director of 18 Karat in Vancouver, Canada, as both a professional colleague and color cohort. With an intriguing business approach of using her company as a test of certain retail experiments, Welton designs and imports home décor with modern organic design esthetic as a wholesale company.

Today, with 4,000 sq. ft. of retail space and a garden, the objective of 18 Karat has remained true since opening in 1990: to test products and better understand the retail environment so that they can be better suppliers. To ensure that her business is self-sustaining, Welton used certain social beliefs to bolster the business plan: a store that was part of the neighborhood, gave back to the community, had authenticity, respected the customer with full disclosure and understood the customer’s intellectual nature.

Using her business as retail research, Welton revealed her 11 experimental questions, which have guided 18 Karats’ evolution: Can you excite, inspire and motivate me? Can you make me curious? Can you awe me? Can you motivate me to buy when I was just looking? Can you take me on an adventure? Are you all I could ever dream of? Can you make me feel good? Do you become my pilgrimage? Do you excite and inspire me every time? What have you done for me lately? Will you follow me wherever I go?

With a successful business for nearly 20 years, Welton looks ahead with a design book for next year and her first furniture collection this summer. As color forecasters, Eiseman and Welton understand the convergence of fashion, consumer goods, travel, the media and social causes as influencers of color, how the psychology of color influences the buyer. While the past of color held a more limited lineage, the future portends a variety of influences and an increasingly sophisticated, savvy customer.

The 2008 International Home + Housewares Show runs March 16-18 at Chicago’s McCormick Place. The largest marketplace of housewares and homegoods in the world features more than 2,000 exhibitors, including 400 new companies, and attracts 60,000 attendees, including more than 23,000 retail buyer from around the world. For more information about the Show, visit www.housewares.org.