For all its practical applications, [-----1-----] is a far more emotional than rational process. Sure, the end result determines what color sofa you’ll be buying or what color dress this year’s bridesmaids will wear. But “the quality and direction of the color story has to come [by [----2----],” says fashion designer and Color Association of the United States (CAUS) committee member Monika Tilley.

Color choices develop their own logic

Green emerged in the mid-’90s and has not retreated. “We think of it as symbolic of a certain movement: the preservation of the environment, sustainability, organic,” says committee member Leatrice Eiseman of the Pantone Color Institute. “We’re still living in a very anxious world, and people want to feel reassured.” And regarding the resilience of metallics, thank the ever-influential role of technology.

Choosing color is “a lot more thoughtful process than a group of people sitting around and saying, ‘Oh, let’s foist this on the American public,’” Eiseman says.

More typically, it’s a pavement-pounding, globetrotting activity based on real research. CAUS committee member Kathryn Gordy Novakovic spends as many as 110 days on the road each year, chronicling, for instance, the clothes worn by edgy kids in trendy neighborhoods. She travels with at least two cameras and is known to whip one out at a restaurant to record a particularly unusual flower or vase. Tilley [----3----] antiques fairs and designer show houses. Two years to filter down

Two years to filter down

Some palettes have been better received than others. The designers, marketers and product developers filter the choices. Success comes when a pigment a prognosticator is particularly passionate about [-----4-----] from the meeting room to the manufacturer to the store to, finally, the consumer. This usually takes two years.