Since 1999, the Pantone Color Institute has selected a color of the year. Their decision is widely accepted as the color that will affect trends in fashion and design for the year that follows. On their website, the Pantone Color Institute is described as “the business unit within Pantone that highlights the top seasonal runway colors, selects the Pantone Color of the Year, forecasts global color trends, and advises companies on color for product and brand visual identity.”

In order to select the color of the year, the Pantone Color Institute searches for trends in films, traveling art collections, popular travel destinations and much more. The color of the year is usually released in December before the new year. Once the color of the year is announced, it traditionally influences fashion, home furnishings and other design forms for the year. 

The color of the year for 2022 is 17-3938 Very Peri. The Pantone Color Institute describes the color as “a symbol of the global zeitgeist of the moment and the transition we are going through. As we emerge from an intense period of isolation, our notions and standards are changing, and our physical and digital lives have merged in new ways. Digital design helps us to stretch the limits of reality, opening the door to a dynamic virtual world where we can explore and create new color possibilities. With trends in gaming, the expanding popularity of the metaverse and rising artistic community in the digital space PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri illustrates the fusion of modern life and how color trends in the digital world are being manifested in the physical world and vice versa.”

Some past colors of the year are listed below.

2021: 17-5104 Ultimate Gray and 13-0647 Illuminating

2020: 19-4052 Classic Blue

2019: 16-1546 Living Coral

2018: 18-3838 Ultra Violent