Each year, Pantone’s annual Color of the Year prediction sends the industry into a chromatic frenzy, impacting clothing, furniture, digital design, and of course, beauty. The hue is selected based on the research of global trend forecasters researching fashion and design, with this year marking the initiative’s 25th anniversary. Following on from Viva Magenta, the 2023 pick, the next 12 months will see a more muted color take hold: 13-1023 Peach Fuzz. The shade is described as “a velvety, gentle peach tone whose all-embracing spirit enriches mind, body, and soul.”
Speaking on the company’s color of choice, Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director, Pantone Color Institute, states, “In seeking a hue that echoes our innate yearning for closeness and connection, we chose a color radiant with warmth and modern elegance. A shade that resonates with compassion, offers a tactile embrace, and effortlessly bridges the youthful with the timeless.”
No doubt, the beauty industry loves itself a peach. The hue itself remains a constant when it comes to lip, cheek, and eye color products. Too Faced’s bestselling Sweet Peach palette of 2016, and Tom Ford’s controversial Bitter Peach perfume of 2020, capitalized on the fruit’s juicy appeal. However, Peach Fuzz appears to be neither playful nor provocative like its predecessors; instead there is a quiet subtlety and calmness to it. After the political and social turbulence of our increasingly divisive world over the past year, perhaps it’s a necessary antidote. Others argue it’s an evolution of the Barbie pink craze that swept across shopping carts and Instagram feeds in 2023, because the color sits between an orange and a pink hue.
The “Fuzz” of its name speaks to our tactile nature, a need for grounding in the physical amid such a digital world. Fuzz is soft and comforting, a cocoon of comfort—a stark contrast to an at times abrasive world full of heated debates and opposing viewpoints. Pantone also emphasizes the need for community and a return to ourselves in a world focused on the external.
“With this year’s Pantone Color of the Year 2024, we see an increased focus on community and people across the world reframing how they want to live and evaluating what is important—that being the comfort of being close to those we love. The color is one whose warm and welcoming embrace conveys a message of compassion and whose cozy sensibility brings people together and enriches the soul,” adds Laurie Pressman, Vice President of the Pantone Color Institute. “In the spirit of Pantone 13-1023 Peach Fuzz, we reflect back on the last 25 years of the Pantone Color of the Year program grateful to provide an avenue where designers and color enthusiasts all over the world can engage in a conversation about color, be inspired by color, and showcase their creativity within their communities. We look forward to continuing this for many more years to come.” Whereas peach fuzz was previously a sight most consumers wanted to rid their faces of, in 2024, they will embrace it with gusto.
