Happy Tuesday everyone! This week’s color is a deep red-orange named after the world’s most precious saffron spice. Harvested from delicate, handpicked blossoms, it carries a history as rich as the color itself.
Color Psychology
Saffron carries the warmth of red but not its volatility. Psychologically, it represents vitality, spirituality, and transformation. Rooted in ritual yet radiant with creativity, it’s definitely a color that awakens.
Brief History
Both the spice and the color carrying its name come from the Crocus sativus, whose violet flowers must be picked entirely by hand. It takes over 30,000 blossoms to produce a single pound of saffron. That’s a lot of patience.
Matter of fact, this painstaking process made saffron more valuable than gold by weight. Cleopatra bathed in it, Buddhist monks dyed their robes with it, and the ancient Greeks wove it into garments of celebration.
And in 1374, a fourteen-month “Saffron War” broke out after 800 pounds of the spice were stolen en route to Basel. If that doesn’t tell you how valuable it is, I don’t know what will.
The 18th-century historian K. St. Clair once wrote that saffron’s flavor is,
“simultaneously sweet, bitter, and pungent… at one moment reminiscent of hay, and the next something rather more bosky, like mushroom.”
Even now, saffron remains one of the most expensive substances on earth, often selling for over $5,000 per kilogram. Used from paella in Spain to high-end fragrance notes.
The color’s aura of craft and rarity never faded. Now let’s check out some design applications!
Fashion Design
Balmain Fall 2025 Ready-to-Wear
In this look from Balmain’s Fall 2025 RTW, the saffron boots definitely cut through the glossy black leather, adding some heat and opulence to the look.
Ahluwalia Fall 2025 Ready-to-Wear
And Ahluwalia’s Fall 2025 collection channeled an earthy sensuality through these deep red-orange tones. The color feels almost lifted from clay and spice, bringing warmth to structured tailoring and fluid draping alike.
Interior Design
When it comes to interior design, saffron tends to be used in velvet upholstery, ceramic tiles, or textured walls.
The interiors below use a deep saffron as both backdrop and atmosphere, creating a great deal of warmth. The visually dynamic matte walls give it a rather earthbound and opulent feel.
It pairs beautifully with charcoal, ecru, olive, and terracotta, and under natural light, it feels both grounded and transcendent.
Branding
In branding, saffron evokes confidence, heritage, sensuality, and connection. It’s the color of spice markets, luxury hospitality, and artisan craftsmanship.
Chloé embraces saffron’s tactile warmth through a sun-baked, textured surface, while Comme des Garçons abstracts it into an earthy vessel. See how the color easily moves between material and idea, heritage and modernism.
And here, saffron turns surprisingly futuristic with the amber disc glowing against clear plastic. Ancient, but modern.
Pantone® & More
If you’re interested in working with the red-orange Saffron Spice, I recommend “Burnt Ochre” Pantone 18-1354 TCX. I also included HEX, RGB and CMYK details below.
HEX: #B64626
RGB: (182, 70, 38)
CMYK: 0, 62, 79, 29
Thank you for reading, and hopefully you learned something new about saffron orange today! If you enjoyed reading, please give this post a like so I know what you guys want to see more of :)
And tell me, which color should I feature next? See you next Tuesday!