Notes of: Peach
Can I convince myself to like Pantone's color of the year?
Welcome to Notes Of! Each month I make a mood board and post it to Instagram as a little creative exercise in thematic thinking. Notes Of will elaborate on each month’s theme and includes links to relevant articles, videos, products, and more. These are normally just for paid subscribers, but this month I’m opening it up to everyone to peek at while they can still get 20% off annual subscriptions!
I was looking for a challenge for January’s mood board, and when Pantone announced that 2024’s color of the year was PEACH FUZZ, I found it. Peach fuzz??? I know I wasn’t alone in scratching my head about this choice, one that Pantone says “captures our desire to nurture ourselves and others. It's a velvety gentle peach tone whose all-embracing spirit enriches mind, body, and soul.” Okay…
It’s certainly a divisive color, and in the case of this particular shade I’d be willing to bet that the use of the word “fuzz” doesn’t help, either. So because I usually avoid peach altogether (both the color and the fruit), it felt like a reason to explore it this month. In what context might I actually like peach? When paired with other shades of pink, is it actually kind of cool? Is it just Peach Fuzz that gives me the ick? Determined to answer all of these very important questions, I made a mood board to figure it out.
10 notes on peach:
I usually start sourcing images for these mood boards by scrolling through my Pinterest and saved folders on Instagram, and frankly, I found almost nothing. I kept wondering “Is this peach?” as I stared into various shades of pink and orange. Ultimately, I decided that peach is a range that stretches from ballet pink (à la little kids’ ballet slippers) to a sort of light creamsicle, and I also decided to stop thinking about it so hard.
There’s a conspiracy theory floating around TikTok that Pantone’s color of the year thing is a total sham and that it’s not a trend prediction at all but instead linked to what’s happening in Big Tech that year. I think the originator of this theory is Ariana Alfonso, who demonstrates in a TikTok that 2017’s color of the year, Greenery, is veryyy close to Android green. Rae Leigh further builds on the theory: 2018’s Living Coral is pretty much an exact match of Airbnb’s logo and 2022’s Very Peri (yuck) is the same weird purple as Microsoft Teams. I’ve also heard theories connecting 2023’s Viva Magenta to Barbie. I have no idea if this is at all based in reality and I’ve always thought Pantone’s color of the year thing was meaningless to begin with but it’s fun to entertain!
Simone Rocha’s first couture collection for John Paul Gaultier showed earlier this week and it was very beautiful and also very peach! I’m not surprised—Simone Rocha always plays in a particular palette and it includes shades of pink—but maybe Pantone is onto something.
That little peach card that I used in the mood board has been saved to my Pinterest board for years now, and in my sourcing quest I was surprised to learn of its origins: it’s from Langston Hughes’ collection of rent party cards.
Via Hyperallergic: “On Saturday nights in mid-century Harlem, the most raucous parties were frequently happening in private apartments, with admission between 25 and 50 cents. The fee would go towards paying the often inflated rents charged to black tenants working for low wages in Manhattan, with live music, drinks, and dancing offered in exchange. From 1925 and 1960, the poet Langston Hughes amassed a large collection of these rent party cards, drawn to the rhyming lines that usually advertised the gatherings, like ‘Leave your troubles, wear your smile / Join this happy bunch for a while!’ and ‘Hop Mr. Bunny, Skip Mr. Bear, / If you don’t dig this party you ain’t no where!’”
Honestly, a good reminder for me to always look into sources because I would have had no idea. The rest of the cards are really great, too.
Something I didn’t find a lot of when making the mood board was examples of peach used in interiors. Or, at least, in ways I actually like. But I was reminded of Louis Armstrong’s peachily patterned living room, and while it isn’t necessarily my style it’s something special regardless.
I was also reminded that Ed Ruscha’s Peach (1964) hangs in Marc Jacobs’ New York City townhouse.
One of my favorite awards season looks so far has been Rosemund Pike’s Molly Goddard dress at the Vanity Fair pre-Globes party. With that red lip and low bun??? Perfect.
I had to stop myself from just using 16 images of dusty, sun-faded peach walls in this mood board, but one of the ones that made the cut was from the set of the Jacquemus FW19 runway show. A candy-colored town square of sorts, models walked past faux buildings complete with laundry hanging from their balconies, flowers in the flower boxes, and striped awnings above the doors. You get a sense of the whole thing in this video:
Harry Styles’ in this Bode jacket:
And lastly, I asked everyone (or at least everyone who saw my 1 story on Instagram about it) for their opinions on Peach Fuzz, and these were some highlights:
“It’s giving Boca retirement home”
“This shade of peach reminds me of a hearing aid but in general I like peach”
“I saw a beach jogger in this color legging. Thought she was in a thong.”
“It universally doesn’t look good on anyone”
“I find the name visceral and upsetting”
“Golden Girls in a bad way.”
“Looks like the ‘white person skin tone’ Crayola crayon”
And then a lot of people said they just thought it was boring. For the record, though, a lot of people do like it and truly, all the power to them!!!)
The final verdict: I don’t hate it, I don’t love it, and I definitely don’t think it’s in any way representative of the culture in 2024. It’s a hard no when used as a flat color in print, I think, but for tile and tulle and textured walls I can get into it, especially when it’s paired with taupes and other pinks and cobalt blue and brown. Have I convinced you?? Have I convinced myself????
Enjoy your Sunday!
x
Ali
Sources: Set design by Till Duca and Sam Begis for Jacquemus FW19; You Are Welcome, Andy Normal Smith (2018); Madonna Osteria in Paris; Colombe, Henri Matisse (ca. 1946); A.F. Vandevorst Spring 2001 RTW; Flower market in Bangkok, Pia Riverola (2022); rent party card from the collection of Langston Hughes; curtains from Instant Decorating: Original Ideas for Transforming a Room in Hours by Stewart Walton and Elizabeth Wilhide (1993); Mercado De Fruta, Brittany Ferns; kitchen at Casa Pedregal by Luis Barragán; Rosemund Pike in Molly Goddard; Scallop Shadows, David Kitz; Three peaches on a stone ledge with a painted lady butterfly, Adriaen Coorte (c. 1693-1695); Blue jumper, Luke Edward Hall (2020); Padre with clock, David Burdeny (2014); Alba Flores for Vogue España by Camila Falquez (2019)
I love it! 🍑 Makes me think of Italian summers and the Villa Albergoni in CMBYN.
The colour definitely works in the garden if that’s of any help - it’s a question of getting the right shades in other flowers to work with it. Deep clarets and burgundies can set the peach off perfectly, but the trick is not to have too much of the peach otherwise it can all feel a bit too try-hard.
The colour looks amazing in the soft light of Venice, where house facades sit alongside each other so beautifully in their peaches, terracottas and deep reds. And the light makes all the difference. But all these examples are in the garden or outside
- in the home, I’ve no idea, so this is all super-helpful! Thank you