Purple Reign

Meeting participants "come in with gadgets and toys, strange things like mirrors, records, their own color palettes and mood boards," says David Shah, a Holland-based publisher of color and textile magazines who runs the Pantone gatherings. "I've seen people get hysterical with each other over the minutest difference in hue, something where nobody's going to know the difference." He adds, "Color's a complicated business."

And purple may be one of the most complicated colors. It traces its roots back to kings and cardinals, in the days when thousands of mollusks had to be crushed to make a single drop of purple dye, a process only those with servants could afford. Douglas Lloyd of Lloyd & Co., the New York City design firm that recently created a violet-hued ad campaign for Estée Lauder's fragrance Sensuous, says he chose the color for its "royal connotations, a richness that conjures the idea of religion and incense." But, he says, "at the end of the day, it's just a great, poppy color."

Sometimes it can have a little too much pop. Historically, the automotive industry has been leery of purple, with Americans tending to shy away from brighter colors on larger cars. But the General Motors executive in charge of external color and trim, Chris Webb, is quick to sing the praises of Cadillac's revival of "black cherry," which he describes as "a very dark burgundy red." When pressed, he notes that "reds are going bluer." To the point of purple? "Exactly."

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