Pantone Princess (noun) /ˈpanˌtōn prɪnsəs/:  A title given to a person or company guilty of overusing the Pantone color of the year.

1.  In a sentence: Did you see how much orange Gretchen and Tamra wore this season?  They’re such Pantone Princesses.

While the Pantone color of the year is fun for a pop of color, some people, designers and project managers take it waaaay too far.  It’s not a uniform for the year, it’s not a law, it’s a suggestion to take the color palate of fashion, print and advertising in a new direction.  It’s inspiration, not direction.

I almost feel like some people wear it thinking, “I wonder if someone will recognize that this is the color of the year and think, wow, that person knows about Pantone, they must be interesting.” or if  designers think “I wonder how many people we can get to wear the same color without even knowing why all of a sudden everyone is wearing this color.”  You know like what that one lady said in  The Devil Wears Prada, but with intent.

I can totally picture a girl in Nebraska thinking she’s the only one who is cool and sophisticated and fashionable in her small town driving to Omaha to buy a dress in this color thinking, “OMG I’m going to get home, wear this dress and no one is even going to know how important this color is.  I need to move to New York so that someone will notice me and think, wow she’s sophisticated and on trend.”  It’s not important and it doesn’t define you, you’re wearing an orange dress.  Wearing Pantone’s color of the year doesn’t make you fashion forward, fashionable or awesome.

Pantone’s color of the year isn’t some super secret fashion code that enables uber fashion people to silently communicate with each other through color.  Or iiiis it?  Well maybe it was 10 years ago but marketing and social media has pretty much taken care of that.

While I’m pretty sure Tamra’s dress is supposed to be red, for a little less than three hours I was in Tangerine Tango hell.