Settled, side by side

Brinjal is the Hindi word for aubergine, and the color is exactly the skin of one: a deep, brown-based plum that reads almost black until light finds the purple in it. With an LRV around 7 it is a true dark, and it is one of the most flattering darks there is — warmer than navy, softer than black, richer than charcoal.

Costes is a Portola Roman Clay — a hand-applied plaster finish rather than a paint — in a dusty rose-terracotta. Because Roman Clay is troweled on, the color is never flat: it moves between pale pink and deep clay across a single wall, and the surface has a soft, suede-like depth that photographs like stone.