Kumar Bahukhandi
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Marking 10 years of the Lodhi Art District, Asian Paints brings its Colour of the Year into the public realm for the first time through a mural at the Lodhi Art Festival
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Launches ‘The Way We Live’, a visual exploration of everyday Indian homes
Like a hush that settles over the world just before midnight, Asian Paints Colour of the Year 2026, Moonlit Silk, arrives as a tender presence in everyday spaces. Soft and luminous, the shade reflects a quieter way of living, one where beauty is found in subtlety and rather than excess. Gentle rather than shiny, Moonlit Silk feels like a pause in a fast-moving world, offering comfort, calm and a quiet sense of presence.
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Mural inspired by Asian Paints Colour of the Year 2026 ‘Moonlit Silk’ at the Lodhi Art Festival by artist, Pener
Extending beyond interiors, the launch unfolds through a Colour of the Year–inspired mural at the Lodhi Art Festival and an inflatable installation at Raw Mango, the festival’s culture partner, bringing the shade into the public realm.
Asian Paints Colour of the Year 2026 | Moonlit Silk
Asian Paints Colour of the Year 2026 – Moonlit Silk: www.youtube.com/watch?
Inspired by the warmth of worn book pages and the comfort of everyday rituals, Moonlit Silk brings softness into contemporary homes. A warm, luminous, neutral green, it reflects a collective longing for familiarity and emotional grounding in an overstimulated world. Radiant yet restrained, it offers presence without performance and optimism without excess. In a world that often feels overly curated, Moonlit Silk captures a quiet desire to reconnect with what is real, tactile, and memory-washed.
In a landmark moment coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the Lodhi Art District, Asian Paints brought its Colour of the Year into the public realm for the first time through a mural inspired by Moonlit Silk at the Lodhi Art Festival. An initiative by St+art India Foundation, supported by Asian Paints, the festival marks a decade of transforming Lodhi Colony into India’s first open-air public art district. Featuring works by over 50 artists from around the world, it offered a fitting backdrop for Moonlit Silk to become part of Delhi’s evolving cultural landscape at this milestone moment.
The mural created by Polish artist Pener interprets Moonlit Silk through a palette that resonates deeply with Delhi’s surroundings. Subtle butterscotch tones echo the city’s architectural legacy, blending into deep greens inspired by its parks rendered using the Colour of the Year shade, and finishing with the quiet blues of its night skies.
Complementing the public mural at the festival, Asian Paints unveiled a unique installation at Raw Mango featuring oversized inflatable floral forms that create a brief, imagined garden within everyday public spaces. Drawing from the palette and mood of Moonlit Silk, colour functions as an immersive experience. The installation turns familiar surroundings into moments of reflection and engagement.
The Colour of the Year is part of Asian Paints ColourNext, South Asia’s most authoritative colour and material intelligence forecast, now in its 23rd year. Rooted in cultural insight and evolving lifestyle patterns, ColourNext decodes emerging moods and behaviours, translating them into colours, materials, textures, and finishes that shape spaces in tune with the times we live in.
Speaking at the launch, Amit Syngle, MD & CEO, Asian Paints Ltd., said, “At Asian Paints, our perspective on colour and décor is shaped by decades of understanding Indian homes and the many ways people live within them. As a brand deeply rooted in the world of design, we see colour as a reflection of culture, emotion, and everyday life. The Colour of the Year 2026 is the result of deep research and close observation of evolving lifestyles across India. With Moonlit Silk, we are seeing a growing inclination towards calm, softness, and a quieter form of luxury, one that values warmth, authenticity, and emotional comfort. By translating this colour into the public realm at the Lodhi Art District, as it marks a decade of public art, we’re allowing it to move beyond homes and become part of the city’s shared cultural experience.”
As part of this year’s cultural exploration, Beautiful Homes also presents its first editorial publication, The Way We Live, marking nearly a decade of documenting homes and décor across the country. Named after the widely followed home tour video series, the book brings together essays and photographs from residences across India, placing them in thoughtful juxtaposition. A bookshelf from a Bangalore home sits beside one from Delhi; a room in Manipur converses quietly with one in Chennai, revealing both common ground and compelling contrast.
“This book is unlike any design book, and it is not a decor presentation. Instead, it is a showcase of how we live as a country, how our spaces reflect both our uniqueness and our exceptionalism,” says Manju Sara Rajan, Editor-In-Chief of Beautiful Homes.
The publication shifts the lens away from aesthetic perfection and toward lived experience. The images are accompanied by personal essays and poems by writers reflecting on their own understandings of ‘home’, foregrounding intimacy over stylisation. “The subject of home has become entirely about aesthetics, so this book seeks to divert the idea and turn the focus of a home back to its most important element, people. Yet, their faces are not the focus of these pages, rather the focus is the way they experience and shape their world,” Rajan adds.
Echoing this sentiment, Mr. Syngle, shares, “The spirit of Asian Paints is spelt out in the line that the late Piyush Pandey created ‘Har ghar kuch kehta hai ki iss ghar mein kaun rehta hai’. This book, ‘The Way We Live’, looks at the stories of lives told by the rhythm of their spaces and objects. The rooms are redolent spaces designed by the residents themselves, and objects collected because of personal interest and not just for aesthetic value. ‘The Way We Live’ gives the reader a peek into these homes before they are staged and spruced up as one would before hosting guests—a window into a lived experience of daily life.” The publication will be circulated privately to readers and is not for commercial sale.
Together, the Colour of the Year for 2026, Moonlit Silk and The Way We Live signal a deeper cultural shift from consumption to connection, from spectacle to meaning, and from speed to presence.
Celebrating 10 years of Lodhi Art District: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mWKum5Bask
About Asian Paints Limited
Since its founding in 1942, Asian Paints has become India’s leading and Asia’s second-largest paint company, with a consolidated turnover of Rs. 33,797 crores (Rs. 338 billion). It continues to uplift spaces, transcend the boundaries of colour and design, creating a positive impact in the lives of customers. The organization operates in 14 countries and has 26 paint manufacturing facilities globally, servicing consumers in over 60 countries.
Asian Paints has always been a leader in the paint industry, innovating and introducing new concepts in India like Colour Ideas, Beautiful Homes Painting Service, Colour Next, and Asian Paints Beautiful Homes Stores. Asian Paints manufactures a wide range of paints and coatings for Decorative and Industrial use and also offers specialized painting and interior decor solutions. The decorative business portfolio also includes the SmartCare range for waterproofing, WoodTech products for wood finishes, and the Adhesives range for all surfaces.
Asian Paints also offers a wide range of Home Décor products and is one of the leading players in the integrated decor space in India, offering Modular Kitchens and wardrobes, Bath Fittings and Sanitaryware, Decorative Lightings, uPVC windows and doors, Wall coverings, Furnitures, Furnishings, Rugs, etc.
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