Simply White is Benjamin Moore’s Color of the Year for 2016. The brand announced the color, as well as its Color Trends 2016 palette, during an evening reception at Spring Studios in New York on October 6. The event hosted 230 attendees, among them Charlotte Moss, Robert Rufino, Kerrie Kelly and Patrick James Hamilton. Guests enjoyed a thoughtfully coordinated menu that matched the evening’s “chapters”: For the first course, before guests learned of the Color of the Year, servers donned black clothing and served up hors d’oeuvres on black trays. After Simply White was revealed, the servers wore white and passed around white trays with champagne and white-chocolate dessert treats.

The Benjamin Moore Color Studio develops its color trends after yearlong research culled from major industry shows as well as influences from architecture, fashion, textiles, home furnishings and the arts. “The color white is transcendent, powerful and polarizing: It is either taken for granted or obsessed over,” said Ellen O’Neill, Benjamin Moore creative director. “White is not just a design trend, it is a design essential. The popularity of white, the necessity of white, the mystique of white is quantifiable in our industry. Of the top 10 best-selling Benjamin Moore colors, variants of white occupy five spots. It was inevitable that we would ultimately recognize white as our Color of the Year.”

The 23 colors of the Color Trends 2016 palette include:

•    Simply White OC-117
•    Paper White OC-55
•    Ice Mist OC-67
•    Mascarpone AF-20
•    Ballet White OC-9
•    White Heaven 2068-70
•    Morning Sky Blue 2053-70
•    Gray Owl OC-52
•    Lemonade 2024-60
•    Cream Puff 2174-70
•    Enchanted 2070-50
•    White Satin 2067-70
•    Kittery Point Green HC-119
•    Banana Yellow 2022-40
•    Ravishing Red 2008-10
•    Gentle Violet 2071-20
•    Luxe AF-580
•    Blue Echo AF-505
•    Weimaraner AF-155
•    Royal Flush 2076-20
•    Patriot Blue 2064-20
•    Black Ink 2127-20
•    French Press AF-170