How Very Peri

Words Vidula KotianDate 16 February 2022

How can one express the global zeitgeist in a single color, you ask? Pantone answers that with its Color of the Year for 2022: Very Peri—a periwinkle blue with warm red violet undertones.

The global color authority has created a brand-new shade for the first time, one that perfectly captures our emergence from a long period of isolation, as well as our ongoing and deeper shift into the digital sphere. In the design world, this “happiest and warmest of all the blue hues,” as Pantone notes, blends the “faithfulness and constancy of blue with the energy and excitement of red” to make for a calming, positive atmosphere.

At Kelly Wearstler’s Downtown L.A. Proper Hotel—a lush oasis filled with surprises—Mexican modernism melds with French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Moroccan influences. This fourth Proper hotel is a showcase for Wearstler’s fearlessness with color, a place where warm-hued walls come together with vibrant accents and blooms to create a joyful mishmash. On the other side of the spectrum is Hotel Pacai in Vilnius where centuries-old walls and a nude palette highlight a painting that rightfully has pride of place.

We’re suckers for patina on any surface, but especially walls. Take The Airport Rooms at Tourists in the northern Berkshires, in Massachusetts where the wall is matched perfectly with accessories and vintage chairs. At another Kelly Wearstler-designed space, the hip San Francisco Proper Hotel, pattern and color reign supreme. Here, eclectic groupings of paintings run up and down the walls and are mixed with custom designed furniture and standout accents.

But it isn’t just interiors where Veri Peri shines bright. The ultimate color prism—nature—offers up this brilliant shade in many permutations, be it the late-afternoon sky, a winter landscape, or flowers, such as wisteria, bluebells, globe thistle, and sea hollies. Enjoy a sea of lavender in Provence from the den of design, Les Andéols, or as a beautiful bouquet in London’s Haymarket Hotel.

In Southern Italy, Palazzo Daniele is a 159-year-old aristocratic townhouse that’s been majestically converted into an extraordinary hideaway. At the far end of the palazzo is an orangery or “Giardino degli aranci” where the peri hued Kaffeehaus once hosted nobles for coffee and hot chocolate, and today sets the scene for romantic candlelit dinners for two. In Melbourne, a former warehouse Adelphi Hotel is swathe in rich chocolate and violet tones. Wherever you encounter this trend color, as Pantone says, “the complexity of this new red violet infused blue hue highlights the expansive possibilities that lay before us.