On their radar

Retailers aren’t the only ones who have to figure out how to incorporate the Color of the Year into their offerings. It’s up to product designers to develop the merchandise that gives retailers the ability to offer these trending colors.

Sea Bag Maine’s nautically inspired totes and accessories made from retired sails didn’t have much trouble figuring out how to bring 2021 Colors of the Year Illuminating and Ultimate Gray into its collection.
Because it is a nautical brand, navy and white are primary colors the company works with, and usually The Color of the Year will end up being an accent color, according to Katheryn Casale, the brand’s senior designer. This year’s yellow and gray colors were already on the company’s radar.

“We are lucky because that yellow was already in the line in some ways,” says Casale. “It’s come up as a beautiful accent color that we’ve seen in interiors and we saw that it really made sense for us because of the connection to nautical things. You’ll see that yellow, too, in nautical flags, so it was very fortuitous for us.”
The color, she points out, is also found on lobster buoys, beach umbrellas and gives off that feeling of sunshine one gets at the beach.

Sea Bags Maine also was ahead with the use of Ultimate Gray. The development team had seen the color in interiors early on in a combination with gold and brass and had already decided to use the color in its collection before the Color of the Year was announced.

“Part of what helps is it is such a soothing color, and for us again we were lucky because it is reminiscent of stormy skies and the gray beach sand you get up here in Maine, so it just connects,” she says of Ultimate Gray.

Among the company’s products donning these trendy colors is the pier tote, which is available in both yellow and gray versions and features a thick stripe of the color paired with white. The anchor tote, available in yellow, is a best-seller for the company. The inside is also lined with a bright blue print featuring an undersea scene of waving seaweed and a yellow fish.