Always On Watch Two: Color Of The Year: Mellow Yellow

The designers don't call the color "mellow yellow," of course. Rather, it is termed "mimosa." From this January 22, 2009 article in the Washington Post:

In Times So Mellow, A Burst Of Yellow: Institute Serves Up 'Mimosa' as Its Color of the Year

The people vote for change, and color company Pantone delivers.

By choosing Mimosa, a champagne-and-orange-juice shade of yellow as the 2009 color of the year, Pantone promises hope, joy, optimism -- sentiments to match the new U.S. president's oft-spoken words.

"Yellow is the color of change, of hopefulness, of warmth and of good cheer," says Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. Pantone provides color standards widely used in most design industries, and the Color Institute is its research group.

Each year the institute selects a color based on a general sense of the world's mood....

Of course, the following is the real reason for the recent enchantment with yellow or any shade thereof:

The above-cited article in the Washington Post offers several photos of items decked out in the color of the year. I find the following the most hideous of the lot:

I might put those tables in a child's playroom or playhouse. Might.

And consider the cost of those yellow tables: $229 for a set of two, available at West Elm.

Or how about one of the following for your sofa?

Each pillow costs $24.95, available at CB2.

The Washington Post does mention that that yellow doesn't convey only sunshine and flowers:

Yellow can also represent cowardliness, sickness, jaundice and the death of leaves in the fall. "No color has a neat, unambiguous symbolism, but yellow gives some of the most mixed messages of all," writes Victoria Finlay in "Color: The Natural History of the Palette" (Random House/Ballantine Books, 2003)....

Of course, the article concludes on a positive note as no other tone is allowed these days when it comes to anything even tangentially related to the Obamas:

Besides its message of hope, Eiseman says, Mimosa in the home will provide a sense of reassurance that in the end, everything will be sunny side up. "It gives the suggestion of sunshine even when there isn't sunshine," she says.

I admit to not particularly liking the color. I look terrible in and next to yellow — even if called "mimosa." As you can see from these photos, I try to stay away from yellow shades. Besides, mimosa signifies pink to me, that is, unless the blossoms are dying: