Rose
Retired1987-2005 · Color No. 103
Introducing Rose, made by The Fiesta Tableware Company from 1987 to 2005. It's a soft, delicate pink often associated with femininity, love, and romance. Mix and match Rose with colors like Ivory and Claret for a classic and elegant table setting, or combine it with Sage and Slate for a contemporary twist on traditional charm.
Production
Rose was retired in 2005, so it is a hunt for secondhand pieces now. Fiesta Factory Direct is where the colors still being made are, if you are filling a set.
Shop Fiesta Factory Direct (opens in a new tab)Notes on Rose
Post 86 Rose ran eighteen years, from 1987 to 2005, which makes it one of the more common retired colors - you'll find it without much hunting. It's a soft, dusty pink that leans warm, and it reuses the name of the 1951 vintage color. The two are genuinely close, so listings need reading carefully; the color number (No. 103) is the reliable tell. It's a good bridge color: soft enough to sit between two stronger pieces without picking a fight. If you like it and want something current, Peony is only a few ΔE away and mixes with it happily.
Using Rose on a table
Rose has enough color to be noticed without taking over, which makes it a good second or third piece - a salad plate or a serving bowl rather than the whole setting. Its mid lightness (L* 68) means most food reads against it without either washing out or vanishing. It nearly disappears against a white cloth (2.4:1), so it shows best on dark wood or a colored runner.
Below, 5 combinations built only from colors Fiesta has actually produced. Each says which rule it follows, and which pieces you can still buy today.
The pairing in its own description
Named in the descriptionThese colors are named alongside Rose in this guide's description of it.
Buy these to go with it
Rose was retired in 2005, but these are all in production now - the set you can actually finish buying.
- White
-
Your color Rose, 1987-2005
- Turquoise, 1988-present
- Lapis
- Foundry
Opposite on the wheel
Evergreen sits roughly opposite Rose in hue, which is the highest-contrast pairing the palette offers. The neutrals keep it from shouting.
All red
Every color here is from the red family, arranged light to dark. A single-family table reads calm and deliberate rather than busy.
Three-way split
Medium Green and Twilight sit about a third of the way around the color wheel from Rose in each direction. Evenly spaced hues stay lively without any one taking over.
- White
-
Your color Rose, 1987-2005
- Medium Green
- Twilight
Where Rose sits in the line
Rose took over from Red, 1959-1972 as Fiesta's red, and is lighter and more muted than it - a complete change of direction rather than a reformulation (ΔE 25.7). It has been in production 18 years against a median of 7 for its era - one of the colors the company kept. In 1987 it arrived alongside Cobalt and Yellow, 1987-2002. What else happened in 1987 →
Closest colors in the palette
Ranked by CIEDE2000 (ΔE) against Rose. Under about ΔE 5 two colors are hard to tell apart side by side - useful when you are identifying an unmarked piece.
On the table alongside Rose
22 colors were in production at the same time. The 10 nearest in the timeline: