Since 1999, the Pantone Color Institute has been announcing the Colour of the Year and starting a new decade will be Classic Blue, a deep blue shade that is comforting. Today, these colours become trends, ranging from fashion to home décor. Talking about the colour and the ways to incorporate it into your life, Natasha Jain, CEO & Co-founder, Bent Chair says, “Classic Blue is timeless and brings a sense of calm, elegance, peace and tranquility to the human mind and fosters resilience.
Classic Blue has its own persona so one need to style this colour wisely. As it’s a bright beautiful shade, one must sober down other elements and use classic blue as an accent in the form of a wall, sofa or kitchen cabinet, keeping other décor components in minimal or neutral shade, to complement and uplift the colour flawlessly. Use of darker shades with classic blue is a no-no.”
The Classic Blue has always been designer Asha Gupta’s favourite and she is really excited about the colour being chosen as the Colour of the year. “It’s basically a colour that anticipates what’s going to happen next and the best part is that you can carry a blue color in tandem with any other coloured outfit you wear,” says Gupta.
This colour is also genderless. Purvi Roy, fashion designer and founder of La Styliste, says, “It’s poised and calm, at the same time its electric and bold and matt which is a great mix of the colour on spectrum, leaving a great impact as the hue is inspiration. It’s a heritage colour and at the same time trendy and versatile, reaching to greater diversity of people and providing everyone to engage with the color of the year 2020 in its own unique way.”
From accessories to athleisure, you’ll find a range of this shade in everything in 2020, says Barun Prabhakar, Marketing Head, Liberty Shoes, adding “However, footwear category, especially the Indian fashion trend for footwear is a bit less explored, however we have seen a huge practice of bold hues especially in the sneakers trend last year, classic blue can be noticed majorly to be used in lighting/ piping components of footwear.”
Tracing the use of shade blue, designer Sadan Pandey reminds us how India gave the world the colour indigo. “We have been wearing blue from thousands of years whether it’s bandhani from Kutch or classic indigo from West Bengal. I feel classic blue is best when worn monochrome as the single colour. Keeping the legacy and richness of the colour, it can be teamed with accents of gold and silver for occasion wear.”Being considered amongst the noblest colours, designers believe that it can go along with any other shade in your wardrobe.
Sanjeev Agrawal, CEO Rangriti says, “It compliments well with beige, ivory and all time classic white. It also goes well with red, brown and yellow.” Adding to it, designer duo Khyati Nathwani and Suman Nathwani says, “I would just say don’t use it as your lip colour. But apart from that, you can use it in your shoe, as a head accessory as bag or even as a hair accessory. It’s the safest colour one can play with. I would say you can never go wrong with a blue”.
Designer Aprajita Toor, who has used the colour deep blue in her new SS20 collection inspired by Pop-Art, believes that dark blue, a colour by itself, is very universal with respect to fashion. “It does’nt require too much effort to team up with outfits, and psychologically holds an extremely calming effect to the eyes. 2020 is the season for colour pop, so team the blues with other pop colours for the perfect look.”
Colours not only dominate the décor and fashion world but jewellery too. Jewellery designer Archana Aggarwal says, “For the fashionistas, I have used hues of Classic Blue to create new jewellery pieces in the form of sapphire, aquamarine, spinel, blue jadeite, tanzanite, zircon and topaz. Infact Pantone’s colour choice of this year marks a gradual return to traditional colour combinations.”