Purple Love

If you like to read shelter magazines, you may begin to notice that purple is making its mark in the design world. The trend began in France and is becoming a major trend. Personally, I love it. It’s a bold color - one that can transform a room tremendously with just a can of paint.

This room is from French magazine, Maison Francaise. Notice the way the designer used three colors to create a wonderful sense of drama. He used purple on the walls (”Brinjal” by Farrow and Ball) and coordinated it with indigo on the doors and furniture to create depth. The final touch is the turquiose used for the back the armoire. the turquiose is reflective and makes the glassware pop.

Also, notice how the purple and indigo play off the orange tones in the dining table. The wood is accentuated because the blue tones are complimentary colors of the orange tones in the wood. Zip!

Finally, the light colored carpet and fabric on the chairs add light, so the room isn’t too dark. This is also where adding ambient light comes into play. A chandelier is wonderful, but if the room is still too dark, adding some simple downlights will brighten the room on a dark day and add even more drama if used creatively.

Here are a couple of other rooms in the same home. Again, look at the way color is used to work together. The indigo doors are aged so emphasize the decorative molding. I love the way the fabrics aren’t matched to perfection. Lots of stripes - but they work so well together. It’s this more casual approach (for lack of a better word) that creates a sense of a “real” room for “real” people. It looks like humans with an opinion live here. Not like a decorator super-matched everything to death. Those types of room always wind up looking like hotels to me.

If you’re interested in trying purple in a room, here are some paint colors to consider:

• Mythic’s #016-5 & 016-6
• Pratt & Lambert’s Shaded Climatis and Anchusa
• Benjamin Moore’s Grape Gum and Starry Night Blue

I couldn’t find the Farrow and Ball colors on their American website. We haven’t caught up with this trend. I”ve contact the company to find out if and when they’ll be introduced here and will update when I hear back.

UPDATE: A reader corrected me about the “Brinjal” color, which is on their website. I was working too fast and didn’t see it. My bad.

Photos: Jean-Marc Palisse

• Posted by Jennifer at 1:09 pm
• Tagged: Design Ideas, Color, trends