Pantone History
Earlier company descriptions, brand line-ups, store counts and photographs from the history of Pantone, kept for historical reference.
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The Company Description of Its Time
Color is very important to the fashion industry, and that is why learning about Pantone matters to anyone who makes clothing. Many companies in the apparel market communicate color by using Pantone color numbers: a designer can tell a factory to follow a given Pantone number, the historical record filing explains by example, and the factory will know what that means. Pantone LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of X-Rite, Incorporated, is filed here as the world-renowned authority on color and the provider of color systems and leading technology for the selection and accurate communication of color across a variety of industries. The PANTONE name is known worldwide as the standard language for color communication from designer to manufacturer to retailer to customer, a four-step chain this profile returns to because every link in it depends on the step before reading the same color the same way.
From Graphic Arts to the Fashion, Home + Interiors System
Pantone has since expanded its color matching system concept to other color-critical industries, including digital technology, fashion, home, plastics, architecture and contract interiors, and paint, and it continues to develop color communication and inspirational tools while aggressively adopting new digital technology for the creative community. Pantone was acquired by X-Rite, Incorporated in October 2007, and each year, the filing records, innumerable products and services are sold by Pantone and its hundreds of licensees in over 100 countries across the graphic arts, fashion, home, interior, plastics, architectural, paint, industrial design and consumer markets. For this directory's readers, the filing is blunt about priorities: what matters here is that the color system works for clothing, footwear, textiles and fashion accessories.
The fashion tool itself is the PANTONE FASHION, HOME + INTERIORS Color System, described as a vital tool for designers in the apparel, home furnishings and interior design industries for selecting and specifying color used in the manufacture of textiles and fashion. The system consisted of 2,310 colors in cotton or paper format at filing, ideal for assembling creative palettes and conceptual color schemes as well as for providing color communication and control in the manufacturing process. Through a partnership with Archroma, one of the world's largest textile colorant and chemical producers, the PANTONE SMART Color Swatch Card System enables designers and manufacturers to expedite the color development cycle efficiently and accurately, increasing speed-to-market and reducing costs, because a numbered standard only helps if the physical dye work can be matched to it quickly.
Forecasting, Pantone Universe and the Color Institute
Pantone also sells foresight. The PANTONE VIEW Colour Planner is a biannual trend forecasting tool that offers seasonal color direction and inspiration 24 months in advance for multiple usages, including menswear, women's wear, activewear, cosmetics and industrial design, and PANTONE VIEW Home, introduced in 2004, is a comprehensive forecasting tool for the home furnishings industry. Two years of lead time is the fashion calendar made visible: colors must be chosen before fabrics are dyed, before garments are cut, before a season exists in any store. This page also preserves Apparel Search's own route to its Pantone Color of the Year coverage in the kept links below, the annual announcement through which Pantone's trade system reaches the general public.
Beyond the trade tools sits PANTONE UNIVERSE, a collection of lifestyle products based on fashion color trends for the consumer, consisting of tabletop, stationery items, travel gear, accessories and rainwear, combining timeless designs and modern materials with current trend colors. And behind the products, the filing lists services and resources such as color management, lights and scales, research and development, custom color services, and the Pantone Color Institute. Read whole, the profile describes three businesses wearing one name: a numbered standard the industry specifies with, a forecasting service that tells the industry what to specify next, and a consumer collection that lets the public buy the standard itself as an object.
More to Explore on Apparel Search
References & Further Reading
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