Why Everything in the 70s Was Brown and Orange

In 1962 a group of American companies started meeting twice a year to agree on what colour everything would be. Two years later your grandmother's fridge was avocado green. This is why the 1970s looked the way they did, and why the photos of it look even browner than the rooms actually were. Four reasons: a trade association that forecasts colour two years ahead, a country that stopped trusting anything bright, ten years of cigarette tar on the walls, and a film stock that has been quietly turning orange since 1972. CHAPTERS 0:00 A living room in 1974 0:46 The committee that picks the colours 1:44 Why brown won 3:35 The rooms were actually dirty 4:26 Why the photos are browner than the rooms 5:28 It's happening again SOURCES Color Marketing Group, founded 1962 — records held at Hagley Museum and Library GE appliance colours: Coppertone 1964, Avocado 1966, Harvest Gold 1968 Air quality, Hamilton County 1970 — Air Quality Life Index, University of Chicago Rumours, 31 weeks at No. 1 — Billboard Gordon Willis on The Godfather — American Cinematographer Kodacolor II dye stability — US National Archives film preservation US vinyl revenue 2025 — RIAA year-end report Pantone Color of the Year: Mocha Mousse 2025, Cloud Dancer 2026