Oh, Pantone … you just had to pick the universal color of cannabis for the year ahead, didn’t you? We’re flattered. The team at the Pantone Color Institute — the leading authority on color across the globe — has announced Greenery as its 2017 color of the year.
Is this the ultimate symbolic shade for what is on track to be the biggest year yet for the marijuana industry? Yes. Was it an intended consideration when selecting the official hue for the year ahead? No.
Either way, marijuana is greenery and greenery is marijuana.
Winding down a year that most would describe as soul-sucking, the ongoing progress of legalization and exploding growth of the cannabis industry are two of the few things keeping us hopeful.
“Greenery bursts forth in 2017 to provide us with the reassurance we yearn for amid a tumultuous social and political environment. Satisfying our growing desire to rejuvenate and revitalize, Greenery symbolizes the reconnection we seek with nature, one another and a larger purpose,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, in a statement.
We couldn’t agree more with Eiseman. But there are a few other meanings missing:
Greenery symbolizes medicine.
Greenery symbolizes growth.
Greenery symbolizes money.
Greenery symbolizes justice.
Greenery symbolizes progress.
Colorful cannabis
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With a team spread across the globe looking for cues across creative industries — fashion perhaps the most influential — the Pantone color selection process takes about nine months. This year, The New York Times reports:
They started noticing a startling ubiquity of leaf green. There was leaf green on the runway, for example, poking up around the fall 2014 shows and building through spring 2017, when brands like Balenciaga, Gucci, Michael Kors and Prada (to name a few) all featured it to varying extents. Tech companies like using leaf green in their offices. The Cité de la Mode et du Design, which houses the French Institute of Fashion, features a transparent walkway, lit in leaf green, visible from the Seine. Matcha tea is, well, hot.
But they forgot to notice the pot leaf. Also, well, hot. High fashion followers might recall seeing plenty of them on the runway as part of Alexander Wang’s Fall 2016 ready-to-wear collection during New York Fashion Week and on Margot Robbie during her “Saturday Night Live” monologue in the show’s season premiere. We saw Jenny Lewis take the SXSW stage in the most amazing technicolor weed suit ever. We have double-duty blotting and rolling papers in our makeup bag. A hip head shop revolution is underway. Our bathroom is stocked with beautiful cannabis-infused beauty products. Our third-annual Cannabist Gift Guide has a rainbow of options and was the easiest (and most fun) to shop for yet.
2016 has been monumental for cannabis style, and whether it had subliminal influence or not — thank you, Pantone, for making the green rush even greener.
