Yellow-Hued Home Products Are Back

Yellow is back at home, big time. Look around the house: There’s the New York Taxi Yellow Miele vacuum cleaner in the hall closet, the “Sunrise” Rubbermaid laundry basket in the basement and the corn-yellow coffee grinder and toaster, both by Krups, in the kitchen.

It may be part of that citrus thing: on the spectrum with the chartreuse green that’s still out there in a major way and the tangerine that’s surfacing. It may reflect a mood of upbeat consumer confidence. Or perhaps it’s just the freshest alternative to stark white.

Why would anyone want a yellow vacuum cleaner?

“It’s just kind of nifty. It’s so nice, you won’t want to put it away,” says Bob Loeffler, marketing manager for the high-end German-made Miele (rhymes with Sheila).

But yellow’s time in the sun may be short-lived. Lisa Casey Weiss, a lifestyle expert for the National Housewares Manufacturers Association, forecasts 1998 to be the year of pastels, also known as “spa colors.”