Interiors

House Rules: The new black

Pale pink and baby blue are in for spring but one artist is going over to the dark side

According to the colour forecasters, pale and interesting is the way to go this spring. Photograph: Hillarys

Gemma Tipton's face
Gemma Tipton
Sat Mar 5 2016 - 05:00

You could be forgiven for feeling a little confused as we get into spring, and it’s got nothing to do with the weather. According to the colour forecasters at Pantone (pantone.com), this season’s colours “transport us to a happier, sunnier place, where we feel free to express a wittier version of our real selves”. However, colours this season also “transcend cultural and gender norms [as] vivid brights give way to excitement and optimism, though quiet stability prevails”.

So, what if your real self is steadfastly middle of the road, and you don’t really have the energy to transcend it? Or what if the paragraph above makes absolutely no sense to you at all? Don’t worry too much because, despite the mellifluous prose, the in colours for spring are apparently “Rose Quartz” and “Serenity” – or pale pink and baby blue in layman’s terms.

Those who are genuinely mad for colour in the home should get snapping, as Hillarys, the window covering people, are running a competition to find Ireland and Britain’s most creatively coloured home. Upload an eye-poppingly bright picture of your pad, and you could win £1,500 (€1,900) worth of made-to-measure shutters. Send your entries to hillarys.ie/ creative-colour by midnight on Tuesday, March 8th.

A recent survey by Hillarys showed that we should all get coloured-up, as 71 per cent of respondents said they’d like to use more colour, while 27 per cent felt “depressed” about the lack of colour in their lives.

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With that in mind, maybe we shouldn’t be so worried about the news concerning the new black. Internationally famous artist Anish Kapoor has claimed exclusive rights to the latest black on the block. Vantablack, invented by scientists in 2014, is said to be the world’s darkest material.

It’s not the first time an artist has claimed a colour: in 1960, Yves Klein registered the formula for his deeply pigmented ultramarine as International Klein Blue (IKB). Like most artists, all he wanted was the glory.

Kapoor has gone a step farther. But will others obey and refrain from using Vantablack? Watch this (deep black) space.