Gray. The world’s drabbest tyrant.

Simultaneously secure and aspirational, often paired with white for the coveted fresh and clean “modern farmhouse” appear, it let suburbanites really feel instantaneously chic — the slim black turtleneck of the decor planet.

Gray was the darling of Pinterest and Houzz, and it accomplished the highest status a colour can attain: It became identified as the “perfect neutral.”

Gray was so huge that when Compass genuine estate agent Loren Larsen was staging one particular of her multi-million-dollar listings, she had her go-to program. “We’d inform the painter to paint every little thing Wickham Gray,” she told me.

Wickham Gray.

I’m ashamed to admit that even now, some 15 years because gray began to seize energy, I nevertheless can not choose Wickham Gray out of a Benjamin Moore lineup.

Cannot distinguish it from Revere Pewter, Stormy Monday, Silver Half Dollar, or even Thunder

But now, I’ve come to find out, style specialists are dancing on gray’s grave.

“While grey was everywhere for years, this appear has devolved into 50 shades of boring,” True Basic sniped in a February piece on colors that are going out of style.

“Out with Grays and In With Colour,” Greater Houses &amp Gardens commanded in January.

In retrospect I understand that gray was all about me — I just didn’t see it. And that is regardless of the truth that I had one particular of the most intense gray experiences a particular person can survive.

It was sometime in the mid-2010s, and RH (formerly Restoration Hardware) had gone deep into the gray trend. My husband and I had wandered into the company’s Back Bay retailer. It is housed in a neoclassical red brick and brownstone creating from the 1860s, but regardless of its beauty, if the store’s vibe had a name at that time, it would be “dystopian institution.”

As I recall it now, floor soon after floor of merchandise and decor was gray as far as the eye could see, and like characters in a horror flick who gradually understand the villain is coming for them, we grabbed hands and attempted to flee ahead of the palette could suck the cheerful mood from the afternoon.

But we have been apparently just two shmoes with terrible taste, simply because by 2016, RH, an influencer in the interior style planet, would come to be so entranced with the colour that when it launched its membership system, it known as it the RH Grey Card.

But wait! How did the colour get so huge ? With all due respect, gray is synonymous with bleak, somber, cheerless … ahem … gray.

Leatrice Eisman, executive director of the influential Pantone Colour Institute, stated gray began to get preferred about the economic crisis of 2008, when the housing industry crashed, and individuals started to worry they could possibly need to have to sell their properties immediately.

By that time absolutely everyone was sick of the incumbent neutrals — beige and the off-whites — and they chose gray not necessarily simply because they liked it, but for its alleged inoffensive appeal to some future anonymous purchaser (who in turn would do the very same issue for their future purchaser).

Also about the very same time, she stated, stainless steel kitchen appliances have been proliferating, and gray — with its cool undertones — worked nicely.

“Usually when a trend takes place, it is simply because various items come collectively at as soon as,” she stated.

Gray was also a reaction to what had come ahead of, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, stated Cecilia Casagrande, founder of Brookline’s Casagrande Studio

“There was so a lot ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’ ” — mustard brush-painted walls, heavy iron light fixtures, red dining rooms — and shabby chic, and gray was an uncomplicated way to really feel modern day,” she stated. “But it got to be also a lot.”

So why did the celebration finish? Why did items get so terrible that in 2022, on an earnings contact with analysts, the CEO of RH would say this: “We sort of have a tiny approach inside the firm to sort of get the gray out.”

It is the very same old story. Hang about extended adequate, and individuals will locate fault. “Cool sophistication” turned into “sterile.” What was an exciting style option come to be portion of gray fatigue.

And there was, of course, a force a lot more potent than gray. The pandemic. Gray was selected by numerous in portion to impress other people, but abruptly there was no one particular to impress. Gray’s hostages have been left alone with their walls.

“Everyone realized they have been living in a gray prison cell or hospital,” stated interior designer Kristen Faro, owner of Rise + Style in Weymouth.

How low has gray fallen? Nicely, I place out a contact on social media to speak about gray, and I just about couldn’t retain up with the e-mails from designers and decorators eager to terrible-mouth gray.

“Gray is more than,” “No gray!” “Not a fan of gray,” “Banishing gray!” “Ditch the gray,” the topic lines roared.

“Every colour elicits an emotion and gray’s is adverse,” stated designer and colour specialist Alysha St. Germain, owner of Hello Pearl Interiors. “Think about a battleship.”

Of course this brings us to the huge query: What’s the new gray? I got such a variety of answers — gem tones, earth tones, what ever tends to make you really feel excellent — that if an emergency arose and I necessary to urgently paint my dwelling, I knew I’d really feel unsure, and I discovered myself nostalgic for, forgive me, Wickham Gray.

Beth Teitell can be reached at beth.teitell@globe.com. Comply with her on Twitter @bethteitell.