Pantone Fall/Winter 2014: Radiant Orchid

Just squeezing in under the wire here with a look at Radiant Orchid – another Pantone Fashion Color choice for fall and winter! Most likely you haven’t missed this gem of a color in the stores in your neighborhood, on your monitor or your screen. It seems to be everywhere and, seriously, I think it is a color that will always be around in one form or another. 

While Pantone specifically describes Radiant Orchid as a captivating and adaptable color; personally, in garments, I find it a bit of a challenge to wear. Don’t get me wrong, I love the color purple; and, stop your giggling…my love of the color has nothing to do with my advanced years! In fact, when I was five years old, I made my first set of pillowcases – a purple graphic pattern on a white background! However, in my clothes, I prefer neutrals…primarily black and cream. When I say “primarily” I actually mean 95% black. You know the saying “you can take the girl out of New York City but you can’t take the City out of the girl?” Well, it definitely stands as truth for me -- just ask anyone who is around me when a driver cuts me off on a rainy day! But, my love of neutral colors, doesn’t stop me from sporting the color in my accessories – scarves, shoes and jewelry…lots of jewelry.

Mother Nature seems to love the color purple as much as we do, gracing us with a beautiful and intriguing variety of gemstones and rocks in hues from the lightest of lights to the deepest of rich royal shades. I love when I stumble upon new rocks, gemstones, vintage buttons and Czech glass on my hunts for goodies and then, in turn, bring them to you in the way of unusual pieces of jewelry that you get to style just the way you like.

What I really love about the color purple is that it is rather neutral. Even Pantone agrees – Radiant Orchid looks terrific combined with Aluminum, Aurora Red, Royal Blue and Cypress. Honestly, I can’t think of a color that Radiant Orchid doesn’t go with -- orange maybe? While the pieces highlighted here look great worn alone (what…who said that?) they also look fabulous tossed with others from the collection (there, that’s better!). I’ve included a few stacking ideas to get you started…why not pop over to the site/shop and see what combos you can conjure up in that creative and oh so active mind of yours? I’d love to hear and see what you choose.

P.S. Remember that a donation to your local food bank will be made with every one of your purchases. You can read more about how that works here. And, I want to thank you now for caring by sharing and choosing to help out when and where you can. Happy purple to you! There should be a National Purple Day, don’t you think? If we have a National Donut Day and a National Talk Like a Pirate day…why don’t we have a National Purple Day…or do we and I just don’t know about it?