The Color of Almost
On Liminal Yellow, skin scents, and the curious sensation of being in between.
I used to scribble down interesting color names from catalogs, then organize them in a Moleskine notebook by color family. There were yellows, blues, oranges, pinks, and so on. The well-known Tiffany Blue has its little box. Millennial Pink had an entire generation. Digital Lavender sounds like a gender-neutral body mist a Gen Z TikToker would swear by.
Depending on the season, a brand might call the same white Snow or Sea Salt. A name can evoke a whole atmosphere before you have even seen the swatch.
One of my favorite rituals in design is discovering which colors forecasters have selected for the upcoming seasons. Pantone announces its Color of the Year annually, while WGSN and Coloro look roughly two years ahead, identifying key colors for future product cycles.
Having spent over a decade designing footwear, I appreciate the thought that goes into selecting and communicating colors long before they reach the market.
In October 2026, WGSN and Coloro unveiled five key colors for Autumn/Winter 2028/29. Among them was Liminal Yellow.
Liminal Yellow. What a name. I pictured another icy pastel; did chartreuse get a facelift?
Then I saw the unmistakable liminal-ness of this color. Its hazy, almost luminescent appearance made the name make total sense. Any other name would have felt like calling an Abigail “Abby” when she is so clearly an Abigail. I knew this instinctively, even before I could put my finger on why.
Something about it reminded me of the sky at dusk, the barely-there hand of a voile neckerchief, or a pretty cocktail whose tints transmute as the ice melts, catching the light through the glass. Liminal Yellow was doing something similar, as it seemed less like a color than a state of color.
The Color of a Skin Scent
The closest comparison I could think of was a skin scent. These intimate fragrances linger so close to the body that it can be difficult to tell where the perfume ends and the wearer’s natural scent begins. There is something human about them, a presence easier to recognize than pinpoint. Liminal Yellow felt like the visual equivalent of that experience.
I imagine a glass slide gliding along guitar strings, sweeping along the fretboard in a glissando, then lingering in the smooth portamento between pitches. The sounds feel almost melty, like the musical equivalent of a cheese pull. One note stretches toward another, neither quite leaving nor fully arriving.
I hear that same sensation in the half-resolved notes of a pre-chorus, just before the melody settles somewhere familiar. Or see it in dip-dyed fabric, where one pigment gradually bleeds into the next.
As designers, we can sample each shade in an ombré with an eyedropper tool and assign it a numerical value. Yet what makes a gradient beautiful is often the movement between those individual colors.
Purple, for instance, is commonly understood as a meeting of red and blue. Once those colors become purple, we recognize a new identity.
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Liminal Yellow hit me differently. It retained the sensation of transition, even though there was no visible gradient. A single color in a state of limbo.
Giving a Feeling a Color Code
In his 1963 book Interaction of Color, Josef Albers explored the relativity of color perception. His experiments showed how we can perceive the same color differently depending on its surroundings.
A forest green might look unexpectedly subdued beside orange, yet vibrant against an earthy brown. I find this fascinating for two reasons: the transitional quality of a seemingly fixed color depending on its context and the importance of precision in commercial design.
In commercial design, colors need to be specified, communicated, sampled, standardized, and reproduced. Anyone who has worked with mixed materials knows how differently the same color manifests on leather, suede, textiles, rubber, or metal.
Something as seemingly ordinary as an all-pink shoe could become a multi-factory project, with various suppliers and teams trying to agree on what constitutes the same pink.
Liminal Yellow has a precise Coloro code: 046-75-28, and my approximate hex match lands at #D2C163. Its indefiniteness has an exact address.
The word liminal has a history beyond design. Anthropologist Victor Turner used it to describe transitional experiences, when someone has left one social position without fully entering another.
WGSN and Coloro describe Liminal Yellow through a similar sense of being in-between, connecting its hazy appearance with familiarity and unease. Its associations with contemporary liminal-space imagery also feel relatable.
I had seen that quality of light before, in photographs, interiors, and moments in nature. It feels rediscovered, like an obscure song from decades ago going viral. It is the same song, but it resonates differently today in a new frame.
Forecasting the In-Between
Trend forecasting helps designers and businesses prepare for an uncertain future. We study emerging behaviors, cultural shifts, and consumer preferences to inform decisions about products that may not reach the market for years.
WGSN and Coloro have translated an elusive cultural idea into a color we can specify, standardize, and eventually manufacture. A feeling becomes a color on a clothing label. It lives in the form of a hex code, ready to transcend into the material world on a running shoe, an armoire, or the next-gen iPhone.
I suppose we can code anything, even uncertainty. It reminded me of changing light, skin scents, and a mystical note gliding toward its next pitch. Things I had not yet thought belonged in the same thought trajectory. And it took a chartreuse-y yellow to bring them together.
And now I see liminal shades everywhere. In the sky as evening approaches, across my MacBook wallpaper, even on the dirt-covered columns of the subway station on my commute.
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Liminal Yellow (Coloro 046-75-28) is one of five Key Colours in WGSN and Coloro’s Autumn/Winter 2028/29 forecast.
