these people run our visible world

This is a fabulous article on the Color Marketing Group -- the cabal who every year determine what the dominant marketing palette should be -- not just for clothes, but for everything -- housewares, furniture, cars, little plastic items, notebooks, etc. In case you were wondering, here's the forecast: "According to the CMG, color is becoming clear, therapeutic and nurturing . . ." and we can expect to see "optimistic and genderless colors." There's a long list of prescribed 2004 colors and their descriptions that have no clear visual referents -- for example: "Tickle--A happy red--tickle makes the whole word giggle." This is where catalog-speak comes from. (anyone besides me remember that late 80s catalog Tweeds? they had the best color language, delicious in its excessiveness). And here's the 2004 color fashion forecast -- which claims "Color can help us go back in time, and many of the shades suggest the pretty pastels of the 1950's, and the autumnal reds, oranges and browns of that decade, when gender roles were more carefully defined." (Well, this palette does remind me of Far From Heaven.) And how, exactly, is that supposed to mesh with our newly optimistic and genderless colors?

The secret: just wear black. Always. Forever. It's always appropriate.