Purple’s a statement-making color. It’s not for the lighthearted or the wall-flowered – it’s for those who want a stand out celebration schemed with as much vibrancy, creativity and proud unconformity as their off-center personality.
deep purples
Fancy your purples dark and commanding, your majesty? Go Medieval-sophisticate with dark plums, velvety purples and burgundies. Add touches of electric purple here and there for a hint of Merlin magic.
gemstone hues
Take majesty into the twenty-first century with jewel-toned and jewel-box hues. Amethyst and tiffany blue make for a vivid, unexpected combo, and if you soften the blow with lilac or light pink, or up the ante with flashes of silver, you’ll end up with a truly unique palette.
country colors
Bring purple right back down to earth with rustic, August-in-the-countryside, comfort-colors such as faded plum, brown and beige, or dark grape, dusty pink and greyish-white. Jots of fuchsia and spots of yellow can help lighten the scheme while still maintaining its cozy, down-home charm.
purple and white
Lavender and cream is subdued and demure, but can be perked into pretty with silky textures and silver accents.
violet and indigo
If violet and indigo don’t strike you as the most striking combination of colors since B&W, please see: irises; China’s Purple Mountain; (peaks cloaked in purple clouds against a blue-sky backdrop) the bottom half of a rainbow.
spring
Bring new life to purple with a fresh, springtime theme. Try light purple, light green and white for that dewy-look, or go with dark purple, fuchsia, lilac and yellow for a heightened vibrancy.
summer
For an electric summer scheme, combine magenta, orange and pink. Make sure those colors are just a hair away from neon, so they’re inoffensive, but provocative and full of energy.
summer part deux
Lessen the zing and soften that summer-on-acid look for a more modest July palette, including lilac, peach, pink and white.