It's Home and Garden Show season and what's the number one question I'm asked from folks attending these shows around the country? What are the hot new colours?

My response, because I am a colour girl is always that the hottest colours are the colours you love and that you should never ever bring home a colour that you don't like, but having said that the big story this year is purple. Yes purple, a fabulous regal inspired blue purple is this years reining queen or is that a kings shade?

I love purple and have been planning to employ this shade in my new home (when it ever gets completed) for the last two years. We even designed and had custom made a purple pony hair chaise for one of the bedrooms-gorgeous. I'm also currently working on completing a show home that will see the palette a combination of white (yes, white which is another whole article in itself), ebony, cream and "wait for it" yes purple. (This is a stunning combination and if you really want to know the colour scoop in any given season, ask what are the hottest palettes, not who the individual colours are.)You could throw in a smattering of laser lime into this palette as well; after all it does take a palette of between 5-9 colours to complete a home. Does purple work in a more traditional setting as well? Absolutely, try combining it with a fresh grassy green and chocolate for a winning combination or with a blue black and caramel.

Remember, there truly are no new colours on the market, just new and creative combinations. But back to the shade at hand, even the gardeners are embracing these dark plums and almost black purples. Flip through your seed catalogues and note the new and fabulous and of course the 'sold out' and you'll undoubtedly notice all the almost black or dark purple flowers and foliage. This is fabulous as now you can bring the sunshine in and the purple out as you successfully blur the line of transition between inside and outside your home. Yes, even when I am shopping for plants I am searching for just the right shaped leaf and the perfect shade to compliment my indoor or outdoor room..sounds a little anal, remember it is the attention to these types of details that will take your space from good to great.

At the Asian and European shows I saw a lot of purple, especially the really dark almost black purple paired with black in funky chandeliers, on highly textured wallpapers, drapery fabrics such as washed velvets and raw silks and on upholstery fabrics. This is purple's big year so this weekend spend a little time pondering how you can bring this regal shade home.