For 23 years, Pantone's Color of the Year has influenced product development and purchasing decisions across industries, including fashion, home, beauty, and industrial design, as well as product packaging and graphic design. This year represents the first time Pantone created an entirely new shade.

The Pantone Color of the Year selection for 2022 is Veri Peri, a dynamic periwinkle blue hue with a vivifying violet-red undertone that blends the faithfulness and constancy of blue with the energy and excitement of red.

Pantone 17-3938 replaces the two colors representing 2021, Ultimate Gray and Illuminating, described as a marriage of color conveying a message of strength and hopefulness that is enduring and uplifting.

“As we move into a world of unprecedented change, the selection of Pantone 17-3938 Very Peri brings a novel perspective and vision of the trusted and beloved blue color family," says Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director, Pantone Color Institute. "Encompassing the qualities of the blues, yet at the same time possessing a violet-red undertone, Pantone 17-3938 Very Peri displays a spritely, joyous attitude and dynamic presence that encourages courageous creativity and imaginative expression.”

Very Peri is a symbol of the current global zeitgeist and the transition we are all 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. Given trends in gaming, the expanding popularity of the metaverse, and rising artistic community in the digital space, 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.

“The Pantone Color of the Year reflects what is taking place in our global culture, expressing what people are looking for that color can hope to answer," added Laurie Pressman, Vice President of the Pantone Color Institute. "Creating a new color for the first time in the history of our Pantone Color of the Year educational color program reflects the global innovation and transformation taking place. As society continues to recognize color as a critical form of communication and as a way to express and affect ideas and emotions and engage and connect, the complexity of this new red-violet-infused blue hue highlights the expansive possibilities that lie before us.”

Suggestive of personal inventiveness and daring imagination, Pantone 17-3938 Very Peri will make a novel statement in the beauty category with applications for eyes, nails, and hair in various finishes, and applications from glittery and glam to dusty matte.