With every new color story, trend, or palette I uncover lately, I grow more convinced that 2026 is going to be purple's year. For too long, it's been deemed outdated or too juvenile to be taken seriously in design — depending on what shade you go for — but now, purple, especially in its deepest, reddish-brown tones, is the color that every interior designer can't stop talking about, particularly when it comes to the dining room.
Recently, I asked a number of different designers to share the one color they have been eyeing off when it comes to fresh dining room color ideas for 2026, and, coincidentally, they all said the same thing: "That smoky, near-black eggplant tone that is red in some lights and purple in others, and feels like candlelight turned into paint," as San Francisco-based interior designer Lorri Hicks Cazenave put it.
