Pantone today released a new set of color standards for the textile industry—a set of 203 new colors produced on polyester to deliver the color vibrancy the market increasingly demands.

Pantone color standards have been a staple in the textile industry for years. Prior to Pantone releasing cotton color standards for the fashion, home and interiors market in the mid-1980’s, the textile industry was likely to be using color standards printed on paper designed for the graphic arts industry—the Pantone Matching System guides that are familiar to most designers. This was less than optimum, according to Laurie Pressman, Vice President at Pantone Color Institute. “Pantone has always developed our color palettes based on the markets we serve. Our graphic arts system was created with the graphic designer in mind, not for designers of apparel and product,” she says. “Additionally, colors you can achieve in ink are quite different than colors created in dye stuffs and pigments. To address the color needs of designers working in fashion and home furnishings, we introduced the Pantone Professional Color system in 1987. The first formats we created were in pigment; in the mid 1990’s we introduced these same colors in a cotton format, providing a textile designer with a physical standard that was closer to the end use product they were creating.”

As requirements changed and new materials began to enter the market, Pantone saw a need for standards produced on synthetics. Pressman explains, “That led to the release of our Nylon Brights standards in 2011; a capsule collection of colors in hot and juicy neon-like shades presented in nylon. The Nylon Brights addressed the color needs of the safety market as well as the demand we were starting to see for hot neon shades particularly in swim and athletic wear.”