When you search for the colour of nostalgia, you get many images of colour swatches all varying from deep blues to pale purples and soft reds. To specify my search somewhat, I searched for specific colours that have been named after nostalgia, such as PPG's 'Nostalgia' (PPG1049-3), described as a 'soft, subdued baby purple with a red undertone', apparently ideal for both a delicate and a joyful experience.
Pantone offer a similar colour,
Nostalgia Rose 17-1512 TPX which is more strongly associated with red, but also mixes pink and grey for a warm yet intense shade. The accompanying descriptives are 'powerful, knowing and expressive', bringing together ideas of strong yet delicate emotions yet again, the perfect visual representation of nostalgia.
I had a lot of fun researching colours that pair well with complex feelings and untranslatable words. Other than the primary colours, it's also sometimes quite difficult to describe the specific colour of something, just as it is difficult to pin point the emotions you experience, especially if they are comprised of many different things at once. But, unlike ambivalent emotions, colour is always made of something- all the colours can be understood using a colour palette (digitally that is using the RGB colour code model).
For example, Nostalgia Rose is coded Hex #a4777e and made up of 64.31% red, 46.67% green and 49.41% blue in RGB.
When I think of nostalgia/ longing/ wistfulness as a colour I immediately think of a pale purple such as mauve, or a dusky pink such as dusty rose. Maybe even a deep blue navy or a subtle red. But much like language, colour associations vary over time, and within different cultures. For example, the Portuguese word 'Saudade' is often associated with the colours of a sunset, pale yellow and faded reds. I also managed to locate a Iberian/ Portuguese paint company named CIN, which has a colour named 'Saudade' (#E817), described as a 'pleasant colour loaded with poetry', consisting of greys and delicate brown hues to create that sense of nostalgia and melancholy emblematic of saudade.
One of my favourite colour palettes I found online in association with nostalgia was the 'Naval Nostalgia' palette on the color-hex website, as the formulated shades ranged from grey blue, pale pink and purple towards 'nostalgia rose', incorporating all of the colours that have so far been associated with this emotion. There was also a 'Feel Nostalgic' palette adding more pale greens, and even an 'Anime Nostalgia' palette more focused on the purple. Variations such as faded nostalgia (again, green tinted), dark nostalgia... 'nostalgic memories'...
Even a 'retro' palette that references more of the browns and greys paired with yellow and hints of red/ pink. So, therefore, after much contemplation and comparison, nostalgia, or the feeling of nostalgia seems to connote these colours: pink, purple, red, grey, brown, blue. All these colour appear somewhat muted in tone, as though faded- much like the idea of memories fading away.
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