You’re Going to Want a “Radiant Orchid” Bag in 2014 Because Pantone Says So

Every year around this time, the color experts (which I would think were a weird title, if my own title were not “handbag blogger”) at Pantone get together and inform the world of the color we’ll be wearing in the next 12 months, as the result of some trend forecasting and also Pantone’s desire to remind people who are not graphic designers that it exists. The 2014 Pantone Color of the Year shall be a pink-purple known as Radiant Orchid, and it looks like a bunch of handbag designers figured it out before last week’s announcement.

With relatively little effort, we found over a dozen designer bags of various price points and brands that either hit “Radiant Orchid” right on the nose or get particularly close. It’s a nice shade; vibrant, but not aggressively bright, feminine but not too sweet. It can tip toward inexpensive-looking at times, but we think the bags below all pull it off with aplomb.