WORDS: ANNE SCHAUFFER IMAGES: SHUTTERSTOCK
There’s little doubt that colours and tones have an effect not only on a room, but certainly on our moods. Currently, and perhaps particularly in South Africa, there’s a yearning for a sense of calm amid the chaos and noise of technology and loud opinions. Nature and natural materials have the power to calm us, while drawing us back to our roots and restoring that lost connectivity to things that really matter.
Plascon chooses Mulberry Leaf
Plascon’s colour for 2020 is Mulberry Leaf (G3-D1-2), a green by anybody’s standard. “Mulberry Leaf helps us drown out the noise by creating a cocoon of green goodness in our homes. With this colour, staying home will feel like a walk in the park,” says Katlego Kondlo, Plascon’s head of decorative marketing. Bottom line, Plascon considers wellness and sustainable living to be more achievable with this balanced, grounded and organic vegetable green tone.
This year is not simply a new year, but a new decade. The opportunity for a new dawn. In an increasingly hectic and digital world, there’s a desire for meaning and kindness, a hopefulness, a sense of renewal – Mulberry Leaf offers that green shoot.
If you’re looking for a statement wall – rather than all four walls of Mulberry Leaf – Plascon has suggestions for great combinations. Consider contrasting it with crisp, clean white – the room becomes a cool oasis. Katlego also suggests, “complementing the feature wall with a warm neutral such as Cream of Mushroom (32) and golden accents with Gold Cadillac (Y3-B1-1)”.
Rose gold is going to be around for a few more seasons yet, so use it with Mulberry Leaf for glamour amid a balanced and earthy space. Katlego adds, “Soft cool greys like Ripple 74 and copper-like pink Warm Welcome (O4-C1-4) are great as background colours with Mulberry Leaf, too.”
If you want green appeal to start on your doorstep, painting your front door in Mulberry Leaf apparently speaks volumes about your values, aspirations and yearning for a natural connection.
Dulux chooses Tranquil Dawn
Dulux colour specialists chose Tranquil Dawn as their colour for 2020. It’s described as a colour inspired by the fleeting beauty of the morning sky, and the colour sits somewhere between green, blue and grey. It’s a versatile colour, and can pick up or tone down a host of others.
Dulux compiled some different looks, all around Tranquil Dawn (45GY 55/052), each one for a different space, different mood. For a lounge, they used it with a sandy tone to create a nurturing space, focussing on wellbeing. They teamed it up with Bellcourt Castle (45YY 53/151) and Mushroom Morning (65YY 71/071).
Another living room scenario saw Tranquil Dawn on the walls as a thin vertical stripe, essentially a pale contrast shade separating Military Green 50GY 13/136 and Cheeky Grey (78GG 19/078). A bedroom should be the ideal antidote to today’s lifestyle, so Dulux painted Tranquil Dawn walls, which appears muted and minimalist when combined with a back wall and ceiling painted in similar tones which act as a frame and canopy to the bed – Grey Gimmick (22YR 17/023) and Black Mica (30BB 05/022).
Wellness in colour
Whether it’s paint, fabrics or wallpapers, nature has inspired the choices for the next decade. Not necessarily all natural, or all green, but calming, sometimes energising traces of it, to ground us.
