I once went an entire spring and summer without buying any decent new clothes.

It was a few years back, when T-shirt shelves at The Gap were awash in hot pink, electric green and some kind of yellow that made me see spots. The same shades seemed to fill the racks of Saks Fifth Avenue, Banana Republic and Target.

	Richard Drew/Associated Press Smoky tones with names like "mineral red" and "frost grey" played big during the Bill Blass show at Spring Fashion Week in New York last month. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) Click photo for larger image.

I did buy a neon pink H&M Tee in a moment of fashion insanity, but it landed at the Salvation Army before its third wearing. With dark hair, green eyes and pale skin that easily turns red, I would sooner have stayed indoors than be caught in another one of those shirts.

Color coordination? It felt more like a color conspiracy.

Like store shelves, runway shows also tend to be dominated by the same new colors each year.

"You are sitting watching shows and it's like, 'Who sent out the memo?'" asked Hope Greenberg, fashion director of the shopping magazine "Lucky."

Well, actually, Pantone, Inc., did.

Much of the fashion industry follows the lead of just eight color forecasters who work for Pantone, based in Carlstadt, N.J. Twice a year, the company serves up a rainbow of nearly 2,000 shades, tones and tints, and its color gurus announce which ones are hot.

They scour some odd places for hints of what's to come.

"If you look around right now there is this huge interest in white," said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, the company's research center. She cited the new Andrew Lloyd Webber production on Broadway, "The Woman in White"; a white lion featured in the film "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"; and a new drink called the White Lady.

She reads Variety magazine to see what's in production, and if any colors appear in the titles. She listens to politicians.

Tim Larsen/Associated Press Pantone executive vice president Lisa Herbert poses with Pantone color swatches in Carlstadt, N.J. Much of the fashion industry follows the lead of just eight color forecasters who work for Pantone. Twice a year, the company serves up a rainbow of nearly 2,000 shades, tones and tints, and its color gurus announce which ones are hot. Click photo for larger image.

To prove that color trends can emerge from just about anywhere, she cites Starbucks Coffee houses. The rise of Starbucks and specialty coffees, Eiseman says, was followed by the ascendance of dark brown and mocha clothing.

The biannual Pantone View Color Planner is a bible of 1,925 fabric options. Intended to offer direction and inspiration to fabric professionals, the publication comes both as a paper deck and a three-volume set of dyed cotton swatches.

"Customers always want to know what the colors are going to be this season," said Lisa Herbert, Pantone's vice president of consumer products.

So the company's forecasters note how many times they run across a particular color in the design world, and the numbers are tallied by computer. The most common are announced as a coming season's top 10 picks.

For this spring, for instance, the top 10 list included a lot of blues and neutrals, led by shades called "Sand Dollar," "Deep Ultramarine" and "French Vanilla." (For fall 2006, the company says to get ready for "Simply Taupe," "Pale Khaki" and "Apple Cinnamon," among others.) Herbert said the favorites for 2008 are already coming into focus.

Pantone was founded more than 40 years ago to help graphic designers identify colors more precisely. If they wanted a particular green in an advertisement, for example, they gave the printer a Pantone number for that tint.

Fashion designers were interested in knowing which colors were in demand so they could tap into trends.

At this February's Fashion Week in New York, for instance, smoky tones with names like "Mineral Red" and "Frost Grey" played big for the fall. Breakouts Bill Blass and Donna Karan threw shocking red into the mix.

"No designers really get together and plan it," said Michael Vollbracht, creative director of Bill Blass, adding that he's one who tends to break the Pantone mold.

"I think the higher you go the less you need it," he said.

In any case, the runways of Milan, Paris and New York are where mid- to lower-end designers get their color ideas, and retailers soon follow en masse.

As for my season of fashion discontent? Eiseman said the movie "Finding Nemo" and its electric colors could be partly to blame.

She and Greenberg, of "Lucky," had the same suggestion for anyone who finds a season's colors unsuitable: Buy shoes or accessories that fit the trend, and keep the color away from your face.

And be grateful for those items that year after year provide an alternative to the color trends: khaki pants, blue jeans, the little black dress.

On the Web:

www.pantone.com