Last year, I talked about the colours French Blue and Eau de Nil. They have great old-fashioned names that describe the shades perfectly. In the colour chart in my last post, there's a dusty pale pink called Ashes of Roses. It's a lovely evocative name for a colour, and I hadn't heard it for a long time.
I did some research and to my surprise, it came up in the Pantone Colour Forecast for Spring 2008! The sketch that is referenced is a Bill Blass cocktail dress described as Ashes of Rose and Steel Gray, although the colour that is in their forecast is Cantaloupe. I think that cantaloupe has more orange than Ashes, which has more gray or black. "Against neutrals, luscious Cantaloupe is warm and nurturing - a great addition to any wardrobe, especially when paired with chocolate browns." When I went to look for paints called Ashes of Roses, the variance was amazing. They ranged from a pinkish brown to a pale blue.
Behr Paint
Para Paints
Coronado Paints
Richards Paints
Pittsburgh Paints
So, what is the real shade called Ashes of Roses?
I don't care what you call them, each of these is delicious!
ReplyDeleteThis color was very popular in the 30-40's, but apparently it goes back to 1892.
ReplyDeleteI always thought of it as a grayed out pink, from what I read, so I would say the Pittsburgh sample comes closest to it.
http://tx4.us/nbs/nbs-a.htm
To me it's one of those names that are evocative in their own right, much like "Cherries in the Snow."
http://swanpicturehangers.com/picturehangers.shtml
Cube... thanks for the great resources.
ReplyDeleteOK, forgive me for the reference to a romance novel and mini-series, but wasn't Megan Cleary's coming out dress in the "Thorn Birds" the color "Ashes of Rose"? Yes, I know, it's scary I read this and that I remember it. But, as a teenager I used to ditch studying to watch Thorn Birds on tv.
ReplyDeleteWOW, PoC! I actually never saw the mini-series because I was away at a very remote school without TV! But it's such an old-fashioned and evocative colour, that I am sure that's probably what the dress was!
ReplyDeleteWow what a great memory Jennifer has! Meg this is so interesting. Esp. how the color is "back."
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ReplyDeleteGlam... does Pantone name all of their colours? When I use them, I go by number.
ReplyDeletePantone uses names? Who knew?
ReplyDeleteI'm with Washington Cube here, I think of it as a greyish hued pink (like my Mom's wallpaper....) But that might just be the name conjuring up an image. It does sound very 30's.
Oops! That will teach me to comment on blogs while working--trying to do too many things at once and obviously not succeeding. I removed the comment because it made no sense :) Pantone does not name their colours and the colour I had in my mind for Ashes of Roses is similar to Elegant's--a grey-hued pink. Thanks for keeping me on my toes, Pigtown :)
ReplyDeleteAshes of roses?? Probably Black like my soul.... Just kidding, I hate how they name stuff..there is no continuity at all..I am amazed there are that many "ashes of roses."
ReplyDeleteJen R
i might like one of those as a one-wall paint color!
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of these colors, I imagine an aging French dowager, down on her luck... and beautiful old bergere chairs covered in fraying fabrics in these colors.
ReplyDeletefascinating! i had no idea...
ReplyDeleteit's interesting how colors cycle through in popularity. from what i've studied, they follow a 30 year cycle. So, the "Ashes of Roses" color could be viewed as the re-invented, updated version of the trendy 1980's mauve fad.
I was thinking exactly the same, Rachel. It reminded me of 80's mauve.
ReplyDeleteThe truest classic Ashes of Roses is closest to Pittsburgh Paints' interpretation. It was/is most typically a muted pale mauve. And yes, it was the color of Meg Cleary's gown, which, in the original Thorn Birds min-series, was a very good example of the most common interpretation of the color. You can see a promotional still of that dress here.
ReplyDelete(I realize this post is a year old, but I actually came by it searching for Ashes of Roses color references.)
Our house is/was the color known as Ashes of Rose. http://basinroad.com.
ReplyDeleteCherries in Snow was the color of my grandmother's favorite lipstick in the 50's! Lovely memory for me.
ReplyDeleteI am a vintage clothing dealer. The color ashes of roses was very popular in the 20's in ladies' fashion. It was a very grayed-out medium toned rose color - no brown in it at all. A very muted rose.
I should have mentioned, the original color doesn't look anything like the paint colors shown -
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall a crayon color called Ashes of Roses from the 1950's, and it's the greyed-out pink of the Pittsburgh company's chip. Could it have been a Crayola color?
ReplyDeleteYears ago my grandmother and I were looking at her wedding portrait and she commented that the color of the dress she wore was "Ashes of Roses". She was married in August 1927.
ReplyDeleteI'd say none of the above. In my mind, it's basically a gray with just enough pink in it that you can see the pinkness clearly. The Pittsburgh one looks closest, but it should have still more gray in it. The name is wonderfully descriptive. Think of what a rose would look like if it turned to ash. I know of the color because of a passage in the Thorn Birds, where the heroine wears a dress in that color to a party. The time period was the 1910s and 1920s.
ReplyDeleteI have encountered the color in novels, both Thornbirds and another book whose title I don't remember. The discussion about the color went on to describe it as "the color of a woman's face powder also known as Rachel." Anyone ever heard of a color called Rachel?
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