Pantone predicts Cuba-inspired colors for spring

NEW YORK — South-of-the-border culture, a calm sensibility and blurred gender lines are just a few of the inspirations behind Pantone’s top color picks for spring.

Pantone, the industry’s authority on all things color, released its biannual trend report in time for New York Fashion Week, which ended Thursday.

The anticipated hues for spring include rose quartz, peach echo, Serenity (a soft blue), snorkel blue (a rich blue), buttercup yellow, limpet shell aqua, fiesta (a fiery, yellow-based red), iced coffee and green flash.

“Colors this season transport us to a happier, sunnier place, where we feel free to express a wittier version of our real selves,” Pantone Color Institute Executive Director Leatrice Eiseman said in a statement.

“With our culture still surrounded by so much uncertainty, we are continuing to yearn for those softer shades that offer a sense of calm and relaxation,” she added.

Many of these color choices are nods to nature’s renewal, but Pantone also notes Cuba’s resurgence as a global destination as a key influence behind some of the report’s more vibrant color combinations.

Though Pantone typically releases picks for men and women, the spring 2016 colors are dubbed a “unisex palette.”

“There are truly no perceivable distinctions in color choices between men’s and women’s collections, both of which focus on a desire to breathe and reflect, then play,” the report states.

To read the full report, go to www.pantone.com.