Every year, Pantone LLC, the company best known for Pantone machine system announces colour of the year. Instead of one, they have revealed two colours for 2021. The colours are ultimate grey and illuminating, a shade of grey and a shade of yellow respectively. Experts from fields like interior design, beauty and fashion speak about how one can incorporate these colours. Fashion designer Ekta Nahar feels that a combination of grey and yellow can go well if one can present it aesthetically. “The best way to incorporate these colours into your wardrobe is by opting for a tone-on-tone look — you can have darker grey, lighter grey and mix shades of grey. The same can be done with yellow colour. A combination of grey and yellow colour also suits well. But if you don’t want it as an equal combination, I would suggest going for more grey and just a highlight of yellow. For eg, if you are wearing a coat and pants co-ordinate sets in grey, pair them with a yellow colour t-shirt. This is better than the yellow dominating. While yellow can be the highlight colour, grey can be the toned-down colour. It gives a nice overall balance,” suggests Ekta Nahar. 

The fashion designer-stylist also notes that this is the best time to combine silver and gold jewellery. “Silver comes in greyish tones and gold has yellowish tones. Since these are the colours of the season, one can mix silver and gold jewellery at a time. Otherwise, we are always confused about how to pair gold and silver jewellery. These two colours go well with Indian and Western looks. If you are planning to combine the two colours, you have to play it very safe. But if you are trying the colours separately, then you can go with a monotone. Grey is a great colour for the evening, while yellow suits during the day time,” she adds. 

Makeup artist Sanjana N Shah says that the two colours have a lot of possibilities when it comes to makeup. “Grey is a neutral colour whereas yellow is vibrant. Since mask has become part of our daily lives, people are focussing more on eye makeup. One can add these colours to their eye makeup. You can go for yellow or grey eyeliners, eyeshadow and kajal. If you are opting for a yellow colour mask, then try eye makeup with shades of grey colours and vice versa. Smokey eye makeup is much in demand among brides. They prefer a lot of greys and shimmer gold colour for the wedding day makeup. For mehndi and haldi ceremonies, most of the bride-to-be prefer shades of yellow outfit. That way, one can try the two colours for makeup. That said, I don’t think people will opt for lipsticks in these two colours,” opines Sanjana. 

According to Krishna Kishore of K Square Architects if two colours can’t go wrong together they would be grey and yellow. “Yellow is a vibrant colour that exudes happiness, positivity and life. Grey is a sophisticated colour that compliments other strong colours. It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to brighten up your day and lift your spirits by adding a dash of yellow into your spaces. It would be advisable to use greys as a background colour for the wall and flooring, etc, while yellow come in form of upholstery and accessories,” Krishna chips in.