Living Coral Fashion: The Pantone Color of the Year

Did you know that Pantone (the home design folks) designates a color of the year every year? The color this year is …wait for it…Living Coral! I’m thrilled with the color selected this year as I love coral, and the deep pinkish-orange of this shade is so pretty. If you haven’t already, you can read about the living coral fashion and design trend in this article.

In the past two years, colors selected included Ultraviolet (2018) and Spring Greenery (2017). Colors are selected to reflect societal and environmental trends and impact the fashion, home decor, and virtually the entire design industry. Read about those trends here: my post on Ultraviolet for 2018 and 5 Ways to Style Color featuring greenery for 2018.

Coral is such a fresh color for spring. The Pantone website describes this color here:

PANTONE 16-1546 Living Coral emits the desired, familiar, and energizing aspects of color found in nature. In its glorious, yet unfortunately more elusive, display beneath the sea, this vivifying and effervescent color mesmerizes the eye and mind. Lying at the center of our naturally vivid and chromatic ecosystem, PANTONE Living Coral is evocative of how coral reefs provide shelter to a diverse kaleidoscope of color.

A bit dramatic, but you get the idea. I do love the idea of the beautiful colors of coral and tropical fish, so blending this shade of coral with a vibrant blue creates a beautiful spring combination.

Living Coral Fashion

The Living Coral Top

Coral is a color that looks good on everyone, but you do have to find the shade that works with your hair and skin tone. As a blonde with medium skin tone, these deep shades work well on me.

While there are some absolutely gorgeous examples of living coral fashion on the runways, I like to keep it real. Ankle pants? Check. Wrap front tee? Check. Block-heeled sandal? Check.

Wrap style tops, dresses, and jumpsuits are big this spring. And why not? They are totally flattering and help create a more definite waist, which is something I need with my straight up and down figure.

Side Tie Wrap Top

This colorful top of slub-like cotton fabric fits and drapes beautifully. It will be a top I can wear through spring and into summer months. Best of all–it’s a great application of the living color fashion trend.

The Vibrant Blue Ankle Pants

The idea of colors beneath the sea gave me the inspiration for pairing the top with these vibrant blue ankle pants. These are the classic Pixie Pants from Old Navy and they truly are a steal. Since they have sales all the time, you can pick these up very inexpensively at any given time.

Ankle Pants

They wash and dry beautifully and keep their color. They provide a striking contrast between the coral top and the coral sandals.

The Coral Sandals and other Accessories

Speaking of sandals, let’s start with this adorable block-heeled pair from Sole Society. While it may seem a bit early for sandals, I wanted to pick these up before they sell out, as I can wear them with lots of outfits.

Block heel sandals (available in gold, blue and coral)

The pearl embellishments make these sandals stand out! Not to mention the coral color. And of course, I had to go with coral polish on my nails and toes! Lol!

These “deep-sea” inspired colors are a perfect match for denim. A denim jacket looks good with almost anything, but definitely with living coral fashion pieces.

And doesn’t coral go well with our black and gray puppies?! Haha! Yes, the sidekicks are always on hand and photobombing whenever they can!

If you shop around for coral fashion pieces, you may find it challenging. That seems to be the case every year with the chosen color of the year. But I persevered as this is a color trend that works nicely for spring.

The unique and colorful necklace was a Christmas present my husband bought me while on our trip to Australia. It will serve as a lovely reminder of our trip and particularly of Sydney where he bought it. Don’t you love it when certain pieces of jewelry spark a memory of something or someone whenever you put them on?

For more ideas and gorgeous images of living coral fashion, take a look at my Living Coral Pinterest Board. I’ve been collecting some really cool ways to style living coral fashion as well as home decor, beauty products, even tech uses!