How To Mix It Up with MARSALA – Pantone’s 2015 Color Of The Year

 The warm, inviting, timeless color, MARSALA, has been named by Pantone, the world’s leading authority on color and color forecasting.  as their Color of The Year 2015, dear Hadley Court readers, and today we thought we’d bring you some of the ways you can mix it with other colors to make it look luxurious and fresh, yet timeless.

If you are a Midland, Dallas or Houston, Texas reader of Hadley Court, we think this color will resonate especially with you as it reminds us of the mix of colors to be found in the clay bricks that so many of our beautiful homes are made of here.

The picture below from the Old Texas Brick Company demonstrates this perfectly.

This beautiful brick home is in Houston’s oldest luxury neighborhood, River Oaks, and was designed in 1939 by architect John Staub.

No doubt some of you may have touches of this color IN your homes already, too, making it easy for designers and decorators like Leslie Hendrix Wood to help you freshen your home up with a contrast paint or wallpaper coordinated with new accessories, lighting, and artwork to put the accent on it in 2015. 

And just as with any color trend, the exact shade is open to a bit of creative interpretation, especially in the fashion world, where varying shades of reds and MARSALA have been so popular this year. But before we explore that a bit, let us share..

3 QUICK + IMPORTANT INTERIOR DESIGN TIPS FOR YOU WHEN ORDERING A SPECIFIC SHADE OF A FABRIC

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1. Always ask for a sample from the dye lot that will be shipped to you – if exact matching with something you already own is important to you.

2. Always buy every bit of yardage you will need at the same time and then buy more  – for when the dog chews the corner or your baby learns about magic markers – or your neighbor’s child does…

3. MOST IMPORTANTLY: ask your fabric vendor to PUT IN WRITING and send to you that the entire yardage was made at the same time and is from the exact same dye lot. If not, and you order 24 yards of fabric for a sofa or drapery panels, let’s say, and your vendor doesn’t tell you that 8 yards is from 1 dye lot, and 12 yards is from another dye lot, and 4 yards is from another dye lot – you will end up with 3 slightly different shades.

This is not the fault of the customer service person if this happens – because often their computer monitor doesn’t tell them anything but “24 yards is in stock” and these days, very few reps and/or customer service people have been trained to know that this is vital information – and to alert the consumer and/or designer about it.

This is one of the benefits of working with an experienced luxury designer/decorator like Leslie Hendrix Wood or your own; they know to ask these questions and to get it all in writing – saving you time, headache, stress and VERY expensive mistakes!

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Now, back to a little fashion fun!

The transition to MARSALA from Pantone’s Color of The Year this year 2014, RADIANT ORCHID, can be seen in the beautiful sequin work on this handbag by Chanel.

and who does it better than Christian Lacroix Haute Couture?

And already, IN STYLE magazine is showing its readers how to wear MARSALA. We added the pictures at the top of their graphic, shown below, in case you would like to PIN it.

In interiors, we liked the fresh mix in the room shown below, designed by Sara Gilbane of Sara Gilbane Interiors – who was clearly ahead of the curve in taking a cue from nature and using  mustard yellow with MARSALA.

She also designed this precious corner for a nursery. 

And the English seem to already know how to use this color in chic, fresh ways in beautiful old homes, as in this drawing room/library designed by Nicky Haslam, as found here.

And as you know, we love a beautiful English library like the one shown below in this ancient manor house in Devon, England – especially one with a George Smith Chesterfield sofa in it.

And we hope, this post, showing you how the family that now owns this home decorates it for Christmas, will thrill you as much as it did us. Below this picture of their library, we tempt you with another of their Christmas tree. We could happily enjoy a glass of MARSALA colored wine sitting in front of that tree, couldn’t you?

Could there be anything more welcoming than seeing this house if you’re out in deep snow? We found it here.

And what about art?

Picasso knew what he was doing when he painted this portrait of his father, before he was age 15, didn’t he? 

If you are one of our readers in Europe or Asia and are visiting Barcelona, Spain – you can view it in person at the Museu Picasso, here, and there are also reproductions available of it online, if you’d like to use it in a room in your own home or a client’s home. 

[ As a quick aside: for a wonderful tour through the greatest illustrators in history, including Picasso, come back and click this link, here – you will get an invaluable visual education at a glance. ]

And, our pick for the flower of the year for 2015? The Black Dahlia, as shown in this beautiful photo below and others over on Ruffled Blog, here.

We hope today’s post has been inspirational and helpful to you, dear readers, in giving you ideas how to mix MARSALA with other accent colors into your own homes and interiors for the coming year.

Now, we’d love to know what you think of this color – please let us know in our comments or over on our Facebook Page at

http://facebook.com/HadleyCourt.

As always, thank you for reading and subscribing to Hadley Court – we appreciate you so much.

And, please, if you haven’t already, make sure to enter our easy to win #HadleyCourtHoliday GIVEAWAY for Jonathan Charles’ gorgeous TENBURY game table, designed by England’s William Yeoward, by clicking–>  here.

The winner will be randomly picked on the 21st and then announced on the blog Dec. 23rd – GOOD LUCK! 
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Leslie Carothers

for

Leslie Hendrix Wood
Founder
Editor In Chief

HADLEY COURT

Gracious Living. Timeless Design. Family Traditions.

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