年的流行色組合有怎樣的政治意味
What’s in a shade? If you are Pantone, the “color authority” and the dominant color trend forecaster, and you get to choose a “color of the year” every year, potentially a lot. It could include determining fashion’s direction (these are the hues that inform the fabrics that get bought by designers that get made into your clothes), influencing interiors, and even affecting how food appears. Still, I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite so much political and philosophical import attached to a color decision as I have for the 2016 “Color of the Year.”
色彩有什麼作用？如果你是潘通(Pantone)——“色彩權威”和主導色彩潮流的預測者——如果你能選擇每年的“年度色彩”，那麼你會發現它有很多作用。包括可以決定時尚的方向（這會決定設計師購買什麼顏色的面料，也就是你最終穿什麼顏色的衣服），影響室內裝飾，甚至影響食物的外觀。不過，我從未看到哪一年的年度色彩選擇像2016年這樣深受政治和哲學的影響。
For the first time, it’s a blend of two colors: Rose Quartz (a kind of mineral pink) and Serenity (a light blue). On the company’s website, the colors flow seamlessly into each other so that it’s impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends.
2016年的年度色彩與以往不同，它是兩種顏色的組合：粉水晶（Rose Quartz，一種礦物粉色）和寧靜藍天（Serenity，一種淡藍色）。在該公司的網站上，這兩種顏色渾然融爲一體，看不清它們的界線。
Two colors! It may not sound revolutionary, but everything is relative. And know this: It’s not about indecision, but social progress. That’s Pantone’s position, anyway.
兩種顏色！也許它聽起來不算重大變革，但一切都是相互關聯的。要知道：這不是因爲優柔寡斷，而是因爲社會進步。不管怎樣，這是潘通的立場。
Explaining the choice, the company cited “societal movements toward gender equality and fluidity, the consumer’s increased comfort with using color as a form of expression, a generation that has less concern about being typecast or judged and an open exchange of digital information that has opened our eyes to different approaches to color usage.”
潘通在解釋這一選擇時提到以下這些因素：“主張性別平等和流動性的社會運動；消費者越來越喜歡把色彩當作一種表達方式；這一代人不太在意被認定爲某一種類型或遭到評判；公開的數字信息交流讓我們看到顏色使用的不同方式。”
There’s no arguing with that one. From bathroom signs to fashion runways, the gender lines have been blurring at an ever-faster pace. It’s about time we ended ye olde pink/blue, girl/boy stereotype divide.
這一點毋庸置疑。從衛生間標誌到時裝秀，性別界線正在加速變得模糊。現在我們差不多該拋棄傳統的“女孩用粉色，男孩用藍色”的成見了。
Admittedly, choosing the most clichéd gender colors can seem a bit simplistic, but Pantone has a broad constituency to manage; this is not about the cutting edge, but the big middle.
不可否認，選擇最老套的性別色彩似乎有點過分簡化，但是潘通擁有龐大的客戶羣，這種選擇不是爲了前衛，而是爲了找出平均值。
Leatrice Eiseman, the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, said the joining of the two colors reflected “a soothing sense of order and peace” — presumably an attractive thing to incorporate into a product at a time of insecurity and global turbulence. It also implies that there is no line between “us” and “them.”
潘通色彩研究所(Pantone Color Institute)的執行總監萊亞特麗斯·艾斯曼(Leatrice Eiseman)說：把這兩種顏色組合起來反應出“一種令人慰籍的秩序感與和平感”，在這個全球動盪和缺乏安全感的時代，把這種感覺融入產品應該具有吸引力。它也暗示着，“我們”和“他們”之間沒有界線。
That’s a lot of issue-related messaging to pack into a single color trend (or even two), but the Pantone statement says it’s the company’s job to reflect social trends and capture them in a shade — which will then become part of the fabrics of our lives, as it were.
對於一種色彩潮流（又或說兩種色彩潮流）而言，要包含的和不同話題有關的信息傳遞太多了，但潘通在聲明中稱，體現社會潮流並用一種顏色捕捉它們，是公司的工作。和往常一樣，這種顏色將會進入我們生活中使用的面料。
Certainly, the emails have already started flooding in celebrating various products in shades of Rose Quartz and Serenity. But I wonder: Are we suddenly going to see a host of blended pastel ties, as opposed to the currently popular red and blue, popping up in the next round of presidential debates? Place your bets now.
當然，我們已經收到很多郵件，稱讚各種粉水晶色和寧靜藍天色的產品。不過，我想知道：在下一輪總統競選辯論中，我們會突然看到各種混合的、色調柔和的領帶嗎（而不是當下流行的紅藍領帶）？現在就下注吧。
