Color of the (previous) year – Voices

By Chris Stout-Hazard

As if the end-of-year/new year season isn’t sufficiently action-packed, every paint and color company on the planet has taken it upon themselves to roll out their “color of the year.” Color us skeptical.industy

It’s interesting to get a peek into an imagined future, and some insights can be gleaned from their attempts at trend forecasting. But there doesn’t seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason behind how or why specific colors are chosen. A cynic might point out that, were there much logic to it, the predictions from these various companies would sync up. But, in practice, not so much.

What the paint companies will not mention in their press releases is anything about their most popular colors. With some digging, you can find a list of their biggest sellers and, well, it’s not all that exciting. White, off-white, dusty white, snow, etc.

Popular paint colors

So how do you combine real data and a dash of “vibes” to determine which colors are actually growing in popularity?

We started by looking at the most popular fabric and leather swatches that our customers have requested in 2024. We are one of the few furniture companies that works with color, so our leaderboard probably looks different than what you’d find elsewhere.

Popular colors from 2024

That tells us what has been popular in 2024, but a few favorites – greens in fabric and caramel browns in leather – dominate the results. How can we dig further to see emerging colors?

In a prior life, I did a lot of database development, so I fiddled around with our info to create a list of up-and-comer colors that grew quickly in popularity between 2023 and 2024. This doesn’t guarantee that these particular colors will continue to ascend in 2025, but I’m betting they will.

Up-and-coming colors

Can we read the tea leaves and make any inferences from these results? Perhaps!

Greens continue to be incredibly popular with our customers, but those greens are trending away from emeralds towards those that are earthier and less saturated.

Blues are skewing a bit into marine or green-blue territory, while not going quite as dark.

Light neutrals make a showing, but texture (in fabric) and character (in leather) are important here.

And finally, there is growing interest in statement colors like muted oranges and golds.

Chris Stout-Hazard is a co-founder of Roger + Chris, an e-commerce furniture company, launched in 2011, that builds custom sofas, chairs, sectionals and ottomans at the company’s factory in North Carolina. This piece first ran on the company’s Weekend Blog.