Color Palette Trend Forecast for 2024 (Camp Clique Replay)
What colors will your customers be asking for next year — and how do you translate a big-stage trend forecast into designs that actually sell in a retail shop? In this Camp Clique replay, Ellie LaFever walks through the American Floral Trends forecast presented at AIFD Symposium, with J. Keith White AIFD as creative director, and pairs each concept with real-world inspiration from her own research and a trip to the Maison&Objet trade show in Paris. Then Lori follows with what's trending right now among Flower Clique members. You can find the full forecast at American Floral Trends, or watch the webinar with slides on YouTube.
Five trend concepts for 2024 and beyond
Embrace is the fire element — an "individualist maximalist" approach in tangerine and hyacinth, backed by yellow and olive bright with pops of ice blue and pacific blue. Think bold, unapologetic color, playful fruit and vegetable motifs, and chinoiserie patterns. Ellie's advice comes from the Matisse painting included in the forecast: absorb all the inspiration around you, then be your own Matisse and channel it into your own style.
Whisper is Embrace's opposite — the air element, open and airy in ivory and honeycomb with blush, heather, blue sky, and herbal tones. Delicate blooms like dogwood and cherry blossom, reflective or glass vessels, soft ethereal ribbons, and wispy foliage. Sometimes a whisper is more dramatic than a shout.
Rejuvenate is the water element: raspberry and perfect pink with lemon, coral, and robin's-egg blue, grounded by cranberry. Fruit — especially lemons — showed up everywhere from the AIFD display to Paris. Zinnia, scabiosa, dahlia, gerbera, clematis, gloriosa, and ranunculus all fit, and Ellie suggests balloons as an easy way to work that blue accent into a retail bouquet.
Umbra is the fun, funky, intergalactic one — purples and deep blues with gold, fresh green, thicket, and flat black. Alien-looking blooms (alliums from the garlic family, dyed or sprayed orchids, anemones, delphinium, blue hydrangea) meet velvet textures and tarnished metallics. Ellie even wore floral "tattoos" at AIFD — flowers glued to kinesiology tape for a removable wearable.
Ambition pulls earth back into our human-built, screen-heavy world: black cherry and wild rose with French blue, peachy tones, basil, and moss green. Foraged branches, woody elements, elephant ear, protea, artichokes, and dark-centered sunflowers in free-flowing organic designs. And a spotting from the hosts: calla lilies — the longer the stem, the better — are back everywhere in weddings.
What clickers are doing in the real world
Lori grounds the forecast with ideas Flower Clique members are running today. Mocktail-and-flowers classes are selling out — Teresa Meadows pairs a monthly design class with a mocktail recipe named to match a flower in the bouquet, with no liquor license or drinking-and-driving worries. Other members with the proper license are doing strawberry basil margarita classes with basil in the arrangement. Ralph Giordano threw a Petals and Paws open house with a fundraiser partner, sponsors, and a build-your-own bouquet bar. Steve Vargala posts a custom sympathy tribute every week, positioning himself as the expert in his market. Flower and Balloon Gallery in Pennsylvania hosted a Christmas in July sale with a food truck, bouquet bar, and holiday photo ops. And Flowers by Michelle built a walk-in flower bar — an entire cooler room with per-stem pricing on every bucket.
Ellie names the thread running through all of it: interactivity. People want experiences, not just products — they'd rather get their hands dirty in your shop than watch Netflix.
Don't forget to look within
The episode closes with a thought Lori wrote down from one of the AIFD presentations: keeping up with trends matters, but designers started this work out of personal passion. Don't get so caught up in everyone else's feed that you forget to design what you want to design. As Ellie puts it — take the palettes, textures, and elements you need, make them your own, and leave the rest.
Key takeaways
- Use the five palettes — Embrace, Whisper, Rejuvenate, Umbra, Ambition — as a menu: pick elements that fit your market rather than copying stage designs literally.
- Fruit, bold color, and organic foraged looks are the recurring motifs across 2024 forecasts.
- Experience sells: classes, bouquet bars, and open houses turn browsers into customers and fill seats fast.
- Mocktail classes deliver the social draw of a sip-and-design event without liquor-license headaches.
- Trend-watch with balance — stay current, but protect your own artistic voice.