It happens every year: we get a comment or an e-mail stating how our summary of a season’s colour trends includes “every colour.” That’d be accurate criticism if we included each of 10 million colours that humans can see; but we don’t. What we do, however, is summarise the colour trends for different materials and different parts of the world. After all, what’s chique for lingerie isn’t always right for leather, and what’s fashionable in the Far East isn’t necessarily on-trend in the Near East
So, at the risk of provoking that one comment (or many more now that I’ve mentioned it), we have for you a forecast of women’s spring 2012 colour trends and their encompassing themes. Different to those we’ve already featured at that link, these colours are specific to Japan.
See what’ll be on-trend in Japan, and what they might be influencing other parts of the world with, after the break.
Given the recent tragedies to impact the country, a lot of attention is being paid to Japan’s fashion industry. Fashion is, after all, an expressive form, and we expect that Japan’s take on fashion will change to suit the national mood and outlook. As the country’s trend forecasters put it:
Amid the current evolving society with dramatic changes encircling us, and evolutionary mind-sets and value systems abounding; government, economy, and even individual human relations, now is the moment to reconsider returning to the origin, with our feet firmly on the ground, liberating our five senses, easing stiffened brains and bodies, to live through our era with a flexible and refreshed perspective for true growth. Constantly sustaining awareness of the starting point. The time has come to launch an adventure, proclaiming the arrival of our new era.
The mood of colours for spring 2012:
An innovative palette delivering an inspiring sense of value, awash with refreshed sensibility and boundless curiosity. Be free to compose your personal tones, married to refined pure, glamorous, yet nostalgic keynote. This season brings us ‘Colours of Feelings‘, rhythmically in resonance with original and swinging beats.
As for the four Japanese trends and the colour palettes that go with them:
Bittersweet Love colour palette
Pantone 17-3628, Pantone 19-3632, Pantone 15-3207, Pantone 19-0608
Pantone 19-4026, Pantone 19-2118, Pantone 14-5146, Pantone 18-5913
Pantone 16-0540, Pantone 18-2328, Pantone 14-1905, Pantone 12-0712
A love song, interwoven with bittersweet feelings. An unpredictable, ardent drama with mellow dulcet. Sensuality and intelligence. A ballad of a soul being adrift with every emotion craved in life with the passing of time. The eternal love, intensely versed, and now illuminated with dazzling lustre.
Swing Sessions colour palette
Pantone 11-0507, Pantone 13-1107, Pantone 12-0703, Pantone 16-0207
Pantone 17-1230, Pantone 15-0000, Pantone 18-0513, Pantone 19-0511
Pantone 19-4110, Pantone 16-1324, Pantone 17-4402, Pantone 15-1054
Free jazzy sessions of art inspired by spontaneous imagination, where sounds dance like sleek flowing graphic lines. As swinging art hued with personal rhythm fuses into a crushing and improvised sonic performance, the movement contours an enchanting spiral of zeal.
Daily Colour Buzz colour palette
Pantone 11-0602, Pantone 15-1153, Pantone 14-0951, Pantone 17-1422
Pantone 19-1217, Pantone 18-1022, Pantone 18-1536, Pantone 17-1341
Pantone 16-1731, Pantone 18-4247, Pantone 16-5815, Pantone 19-4024
The depths of our consciousness condensed with curiosity, proliferate throughout our daily lives. By habit, multicoloured echoes of noisy or healing sounds, people are immersed in spools of information, entangled with vibrative emotions. As if leaving traces amid transient relief and percussion.
Picturesque Serenade colour palette
Pantone 11-0601, Pantone 14-4302, Pantone 12-4607, Pantone 12-0108
Pantone 14-5706, Pantone 15-4020, Pantone 14-4110, Pantone 12-5209
Pantone 13-0002, Pantone 14-5002, Pantone 12-1008, Pantone 13-3406
The softest of Japan’s spring / summer 2012 colour trends, this theme is evoked as:
A summery scented breeze passes through the treetops, while sunshine filtering through foliage whispers nonchalantly… veiled in calm. Far off, little streams play faint tunes, composing soothing melodies like artistic pictures. Be fused in nature and listen.
These trends were collated by JFW / Japan Fashion Week based on the country’s women’s spring / summer 2012 collections.
