Western Living Magazine
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Announcing the 2022 Designers of the Year Finalists
You’re Invited to the Design Party of the Year!
DotY 2022: Our Judges for the Maker Category Can’t Wait to See What You’ve Got
If you've been on Colour Watch 2022, you'll note their selection is on to something big.
We recently highlighted a just over a half-dozen new colours of the year—and Benjamin Moore just added their own to the growing list. And it would look like the pros are on to something: pale greens are very much where we’re headed for 2022.
Benjamin Moore’s October Mist falls on the silver side of a pale sage green, “evoking the stem of a flower,” they note. It’s pale enough to act as a neutral canvas for other shades, but It’s particularly lovely with lilac.
Even Sharon Grech, Colour and Design Expert at Benjamin Moore, was surprised at just how in sync most of the paint brands were this year for their love of pale green. “I honestly have to say, I haven’t seen anything like it, and I’ve been doing this for 20 years,” she says. “there’s been the odd time when a couple of us are in the same family. And other times I’m explaining to journalists, why is everyone is so different?” she says with a laugh.
This year’s Colour of the Year, which is also released alongside a palette of 14 shades of complementary trending shades, was—no surprises here—developed with a remote team rather than the usual round-the-table discussions. “We came from a more introspective place,” says Grech. “And we all had a common green colour story. It surprised us at the time – we all came at it from different places, but green was very much an anchor part of our colour story for 2022.”
The silvery green of October Mist is the backbone to the 14 shades of the palette, which range from a deep navy called Mysterious to muddy pastels like Hint of Violet and Natural Linen.
The diversity of the palette is intentional in how the palette might be used at home—as an accent colour or a cozy room, or as a cool neutral space. But it was also a reflection of our collective experiences during the pandemic, when we were both “in it together” yet isolated in our own spaces. “We saw such dichotomy reflected in the palette,” says Grech. “The idea that everybody seems to be searching for common ground. And being locked down, there was also an aspect of, I want to be comfortable, I want to feel nurtured, I want to meditate, I want to feel healed.”
And so pale greens become that universally attractive, nurturing and soothing shade right now. The team’s metaphor that October Mist is inspired by the colour of a flower stem extends beyond its literal shade, too. “The stem supports other flowers, and we kept thinking about that as we were pulling our palette together,” says Grech. “That colour, we wanted it to support every other colour in the palette.”
Just like we could all use a little support right now, too.