Type the words Tangerine Tango into your search engine and your computer screen will light up with a blaze of orange.
Tangerine Tango, set as the colour of the year for 2012 by the Pantone Colour Institute, is everywhere: in the malls, in marketing ploys, in flip-flop sandals and in T-shirt stripes. It is also the newest fancy of decorators and is showing up in home decorating trends. Orange is as hot as a glowing ember right now, and proof positive that people crave and need colour in their daily surroundings.
"I've never seen the retail industry embrace a colour so much. Designers are looking for orange," said Delayna Owen, a design consultant with Furniture and Accessories by Signature Lane Interiors.
Don't fret! This Tangerine Tango is not quite the pumpkin-orange of the '70s but the colour is popular for many of the same reasons. Orange tones go well with wood. In the '70s, orange was a warm complement for pine furniture. Now, for the very same reason, it brings life to the dark wood plank flooring that is so popular. It also works well as a brightener on dark leather couches.
Tangerine Tango is subtly different from the orange shades of yore because it dances on the red side of the colour spectrum. The old harvest oranges had a lot of yellow in them to go with all that harvest gold that was supposed to make us feel warm and homey.
"It's different than the '70s because designers are pairing Tangerine Tango with greys like charcoal-grey and dove-grey rather than with that awful green. Instead of olive green, they are pairing it with lime green," Owen said.
Owen's use of an orange throw on a white couch along with a petal-shaped area rug in the Alldritt Homes Nottingham show home is an example of how homeowners can jazz up their own designs.
"Remember last year the 'in' colour was bubblegum pink. Next year there will be a different 'in' colour so you might like to make small additions of orange to your home. Perhaps you could paint your door orange on the inside – not outside- because you can change it more easily next year. Add orange in small doses as accents," Owen suggested.
Round and round
The 2012 look incorporates new furniture shapes too. Chaise-lounges attached to sectional couches provide a comfortable place for the sitter to stretch out and watch television. Often there are TV tray-like tables attached to the side of the lounge. The tables swing in or out to provide a convenient place for snacks and the ever-present stack of remote controls.
Many of the sectional sofas are shaped like a semicircle. These rounded forms have a softer appearance than the old rectangles and provide a nesting-like aura of comfort. The shape is odd, however, because the couches are not meant for lying down in a straight line, Owen said.
"It's all about conversation now. We're arranging conversation areas and the rounded sofas help with that," she explained.
The excitement in the décor comes from new interesting textures in the furniture. Instead of big wooden coffee tables, the furniture may be constructed of metal.
"There is a sleek trend towards using galvanized stainless steel coffee tables or using chrome on the arms of chairs. It's shiny and new looking," Owen said.
For those wishing a more rustic look, steamer trunks are all the rage, except that the sides are made of a distressed-looking wood instead of metal. The wood is made to look antique and may even appear to be stained with drops of red or blue paint. The tables are quite different from trunks that have simply been refinished, but though they are often shown in decorating magazines, Owen said buyers should be wary of the wood, which may dry out in our climate.
The flash in the room may be added with colour, but real personality change comes with the addition of differently shaped pieces of furniture.
A porter's chair at Elite Leather looks as if it could easily be a throne or perhaps a chair for a princess. The chair has a high shell-shaped back that curves over at the top.
"It is a copy of a medieval English chair that people put outside their castles for the gatekeeper to use," said Mary Robinson of Elite Leather.
Robinson stressed the idea of buying things for the long haul rather than for faddish pleasure.
"What's trendy is one thing but the best comfortable furniture looked good 10 years ago and will still look good 10 years from now. Besides, everything old comes around again," she said, as she pointed to some lime-green chairs.
"People like lime green or apple green again. They are using it in their sunrooms. It goes well with cerise, or pink and it goes well with orange because it looks like spring," she said.
Robinson's fashion formula is simple.
"Look for something amazingly comfortable in conservative colours. Then rejazz the look every four years or so with the new colour, but add the colour with a few throw cushions."
