“I hate to actually say this, but gray is the new black,”says Gale Steves. “It’s a softer color seen in fashion, and nature, and I’m seeing it everywhere: fabrics, felts, grey wools, even in tile. It takes a floor or a wall to a very neutral place.”

At our Fall Into Color event we asked our guests to vote for their favorite 2010 Benjamin Moore colors from the Northwest Color Palette. Guess what color was first? Fairview Taupe, HC-85.

In the meantime, it might sound odd to refer to gray as fresh, “but we’ve gone through a period where we’ve had a lot of warm beige—the whole Tuscany thing—and so gray represents a kind of difference,” Leatrice Eiseman of Bainbridge, WA says “There can be warm grays, but they are largely cooler, and so they appear newer, fresher,if you will. Gray also has a kind of a Zen feeling, and while the whole relaxation phenomenon has been around for several years, our lives and how we live are still very complicated. There are people who are still thinking in terms of having quiet, down time when they are home, and gray speaks to people in that way. It’s unobtrusive, so it has kind of a calming effect.”

The runner-up color is AF-650, Caponata which can be considered aubergine or purple.

According to Jane Matteson, “The hot accent color for Fall is purple in all of its permutations, amethysts, magentas, berries. And, the other color that plays up against that beautifully is citron, which companions so well with orange”. Says Eiseman, “It’s astonishing how long orange has had its run, along with some of the yellow greens. Right now we’re seeing the ‘citron-y’ yellow greens continuing for 2010.

I think we have some ‘color experts’ in Seattle!

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