Playing with the men's palette for spring

Ok, so I had to play a little with the men's palette too now that it have such a yummy purple. And, again, not the best graphics -- if nothing else I should make more space around each colour mix -- but I hope it isn't too messy.

While I've found it fun and inspiring to keep up with Pantone's trend colour reports, it's really just the last couple of years that I discovered the men's palette. It's in many ways an appendix to the main palette, which is applied to women's fashion, make-up and interior decorating. No wonder perhaps, considering how conservative men's fashion can seem compared to women's. But since at least a few of the colours in the palettes are different, it's interesting to look at both. To compare and to get even more colour inspiration.

And this is the result of my playing with the men's palettes. I've tried to avoid combos just using the colours that are the same as in the women's palette as you can find those combos in yesterday's post, but I did include a couple -- including the yellow and blue you might have thought as swede would pick instantly (but that would be forgetting I'm a skåning and we have our own red and yellow flag -- also, I find the combo too bright for my personal taste).

As you can see above, I really like Magenta Purple this time. It was also nice to work with Comfrey, a deeper (or as Pantone calls, it "masculine") version of the women's Hemlock. The only other diffrenece between the two palettes is that this on has a hue called Purple Haze, "a deeper, stronger version of Violet Tulip", which you get in the women's palette. Your really need to put them side by side -- or preferably overlapping -- to see the difference:

Well, why not compare all three differences between the palettes side by side while I'm on Pixlr Editor anyway?

Ok, yesterday I said Magenta Purple was more of a totally different purple than just "a more robust version of Radiant Orchid" as Pantone called it, but now that I see them like this I do see the "kinship".

But do you know what the image above also illuststrates? Pantone's view on feminine and masculine colours. I'm sure there'll be many women, however, that prefer the less pastel-y "masculine" palette. As a kid, I would've been drawn to the top row, no doubt, but today I really like the more vivid, deeper colours of the second row. It's just recently I started to like pastels -- to an extent -- again so I don't hate the calm colours of the upper row, it's just that I like some more character in my colours sometimes.

The best thing is perhaps what happens when you mix the two:

Yin Yang à la Pantone?

You know, in a way that last pic might be one of the most inspiring palettes I made from the two Pantone palettes. It shows how colour combinations is just as much about different hues/shades as about different colours.

So, your turn: what do you think about the women's versus the men's palette for spring?