Colour Trends: Forecasting Beyond the Viral

This Summer the influence of Brat green was inescapable. The viral colour phenomenon which began with Charli XCX’s iconic album cover soon became shorthand for an irreverent cultural movement and attitude, spreading virally across social media from presidential campaigns through to matcha lattes. 

Whilst fashion, beauty and FMCG brands hustled to get products on shelves, savvy range planners in other categories have been, rightly, more cautious about the longevity of viral colour trends. 

While statement shades like this easily gain traction in fast-moving fashion, beauty and media settings, they often bypass longer-lasting categories like homeware. The power of social media means that viral colour trends both travel faster and also date faster – so for product developers and designers the trick is to understand the fad from the trend. 

So, how do you spot when a colour has staying power for your brand? 

1. Track the socio-cultural drivers and mood. 

2. Know your category and customer.

Where did Brat green come from? Tracking socio-cultural drivers and mood. 

Digital, acid green shades had long been growing in popularity with a Gen Z demographic, so this shade was not selected for this album cover at random. Its moment in the spotlight in Summer 2024 was the culmination of several years of growth from emergent brands targeting a younger demographic with a taste for digital-first aesthetics and a growing desire for sub-culture and subversion. Increasingly edgy and digital green shades, inspired by a Y2K digital aesthetic emerged as a result.

“I wanted to go with an offensive, off-trend shade of green to trigger the idea of something being wrong. I’d like for us to question our expectations of pop culture. Why are some things considered good and acceptable, and some things deemed bad? I’m interested in the narratives behind that and I want to provoke people. I’m not doing things to be nice.” Charli XCX 

We included an acid green in the palette for our Modern Love 2024 Future of Celebration forecast to add an unnerving sense of friction to an otherwise classic Valentine’s story. The social and cultural drivers for this industry were telling us that young people were developing a sense of empathy fatigue and, endeavouring to temporarily shut-off from the heaviness of world events, turning to nihilistic and hedonistic cultural cues or dark humour to find light relief.

How does it impact you? Know your category and customer. 

While we were tracking the emergence of these garish digital greens for 2024, their application was nuanced across our different industry forecasts. 

The Gift and Greetings industry is well primed for these acidic pops of colour, given the playful and often temporary nature of the category and the need to stand out on shelf. In this industry, acid greens have some longevity, and our 2025 Future of Celebrations trend Inner Rebellion is set to amp up this palette even further come next year. 

For the Home and Interiors industry a slightly different approach was needed. A very small pop of Green Flash provided a digital edge to Avatar Lounge, our virtually-inspired trend for 2024. However, it was the gentler mineral greens which won out for this season overall, ensuring a sense of harmony across the home, with Green Flash limited to trims, details and iridescent finishes.

What’s next for Green?  

Green as a colour grouping continues to grow in popularity across categories. According to Auto Trader, a U.K.-based car marketplace, views of green-coloured cars grew 24% in June 2024 compared to the same time last year. 

With yellow-tinged shades undoubtedly continuing to dominate, looking ahead to 2025, the influence of gentler and more vegetal-inspired chartreuse shades like Dark Citron, is a much bigger opportunity for product designers and retailers in the Home and Interiors category. This hue shows up in a variety of depths and saturations across palettes for the Spring Summer and Autumn Winter seasons.

Dark olives and ultra-pale mineral greens are also of note as we look to 2026, as explored in our most recent Colour Evolution report available for premium subscribers here. 

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