Pantone Color of the year! It’s GORGEOUS!

Pantone announced today that a shade of orange dubbed “tangerine tango” is set to take top honors as the 2012 color of the year, inheriting the crown from 2011′s reigning hue, honeysuckle.

Known as Pantone 17-463 among members of the interior and fashion design community (and simply “Tangie” to family and friends),tangerine tango is described by the color-matching company as “a vivacious, enticing hue,” “a provocative go-getter” that’s “a bit exotic, but in a very friendly, non-threatening way” and “a spirited reddish orange … [s]ophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive.”

Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, refers to the up-and-coming color as “an orange with a lot of depth to it … [r]eminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset.”

With the latest recognition, tangerine tango becomes a slightly more elite spoke in the world’s color wheel, joining, in addition to 2011′s honeysuckle, such hallowed hues as turquoise (2010), mimosa (2009), blue iris (2008), chili pepper (2007), sand dollar (2006), blue turquoise (2005), tigerlily (2004), aqua sky (2003), true red (2002) fuchsia rose (2001) and cerulean (2000).