Following a year of invigorating Viva Magenta, Pantone Color Institute trend forecasters felt it was time to dial down the intensity for the Pantone Color of the Year 2024 with a softer hue that celebrates coziness and connection. Enter Peach Fuzz. As Pantone forecaster Laurie Pressman puts it, the selection reminds us that even in a post-pandemic, fully reopened world, there’s more to life than productivity and achievement. “It’s critical that we recognize the importance of fostering our inner selves and find moments of respite, creativity, and human connection amid the hustle and bustle of modern life,” says the vice president of the Pantone Color Institute. “Its warm and welcoming embrace conveys a message of compassion and empathy, with a cozy sensibility that brings people together.”
We’ve spotted variations of the 2024 color of the year seeping into interiors too. Take AD PRO Directory designer Sara Bengur’s living room, where the peach-coated walls are at once energizing and serene as a backdrop to globally acquired furniture and decor. Designer Lindley Arthur selected a Gracie botanical wallpaper with a sunny peach ground to envelop her powder bath at this year’s Kips Bay Decorator Show House in Palm Beach, and the color becomes a rousing canvas for pattern and frills in the living room of a Spanish colonial–style home by design firm JP Molyneux Studio.
At first glance, the Pantone Color of the Year 2024 may seem at odds with the tidal wave of natural blues and still-relevant greens emphasized by other brands in their 2024 trend forecasting. But Peach Fuzz can, in fact, elevate those colors by creating a sense of harmony with them.
“There’s an inherent need in the human mind to balance color in order to balance temperatures,” fellow Pantone forecaster Leatrice Eiseman explains. “I think that if you bring [Peach Fuzz] into a cooler environment where you use a lot of blues and greens…it brings that necessary balance of warmth into the atmosphere.” Designer Katherine Shenamen offers a sublime case study of the color pairing with her walk-in closet design at the aforementioned Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach.
Materially speaking, Peach Fuzz offers a light, effervescent contrast to solid surfaces like stone or polished concrete. It’s a brightened contrast to darker wood and metal finishes, but can integrate cohesively with light oaks or brighter metallics too. For those not ready to go all in on enlivening their interiors in the fruity hue, the Pantone Color of the Year 2024 fosters a compassionate connection and easy conversation as simply an accent wall or bed and bath linens too.
Though Eiseman believes that Peach Fuzz is “absolutely gorgeous” with neutral colors, she’s quick to emphasize that it’s “not just for beiges and browns” either. To that end, the pigment powerhouse put together five distinct palettes that include its Pantone Color of the Year 2024: punchy Pairings, subdued Peach Plethora, urbane Libations, harmonious Hybrid Hues, and crisp Flavor-Full. Indeed, there’s little doubt that Peach Fuzz can serve as an accent or an anchor color.
That’s perhaps why Eiseman believes that Peach Fuzz doesn’t just invite us to feel warm and connected—it encourages us to transcend our usual limits of self-expression. “Where can you use your creativity to make it work?” she challenges. “Try to be a little bit clever, and do something that reaches out beyond the usual.”
