The mod couple

The mystery behind the origin of this year's most popular color combination was easily solved. Perhaps too easily.

''Blue and brown started here," says Paula Keung, a spokeswoman for upscale New York-based chocolatier MarieBelle, which boxes its treats in blue and brown. ''Since we opened in 2000, our signature colors have been blue and brown. And now, all of a sudden blue and brown is everywhere. But we like to think that we were really the first to pair them."

There is no question that the combination of rich chocolate brown and crisp Tiffany blue is the color scheme of the moment. Stationery, light fixtures, notebooks, sheets, pillows, carpets -- none of these products are safe from the increasingly ubiquitous blue and brown palette.

What is less clear is how the current brown-and-blue trend came into existence. MarieBelle, put down those ganache truffles and get ready for a fight. You've got competition for the blue and brown throne.

''I don't take credit for much in life," says New York-based designer and potter Jonathan Adler. ''But I'd like to think that I am the author of blue and brown. It's the perfect color combination. There's something classic and traditional about it. But it also feels fresh and young at the same time. It's all things to all people. Those are my signature colors."

While Jonathan Adler and MarieBelle duke it out, a third contender is also claiming the combination as her signature colors.

''We use brown and blue together in almost every product line," says Portland, Maine-based designer Angela Adams. ''It's almost what we consider our home-court colors. Rugs, handbags, tiles, paper goods, belts. It's across the board. Everything we do, there's always a blue and brown combination."

While the number of companies laying claim to brown and blue is surprising, what's more surprising is the popularity of the combination itself. Deep, rich brown has not run in the same circles with cool, sky blue since the 1960s, and now the colors are practically best friends. Designers say the appeal lies in the way the colors interact with one another.

''The brown is earthy and sumptuous, and the blue is soothing," says Dottie Volpe from the Redecorators, a local interior-design firm. ''I just finished a master suite at an estate in Weston that I did in chocolate brown and robin's egg blue, and it's beautiful and it looks incredily rich."

Although the colors appear to have dropped out of Dick Van Dyke's New Rochelle living room, Volpe insists that much of the brown-and-blue explosion can be attributed to people in their 20s and 30s who are attracted to the modern graphics and clean design lines that often follow the colors to mid-century pieces. When she stages homes for real estate showings, Volpe also uses brown and blue accents to jazz up an otherwise bland, beige canvas.

In his forthcoming book ''My Prescription for Anti-depressive Living," Adler makes a case that a stylish house is just as effective as Zoloft or gin and tonics to lift spirits. One essay focuses squarely on the concept that ''everyone should overdose on color," which Adler does regularly in his retro-inspired designs.

''Blue and brown is just an incredibly happy color combination," he says. ''It's impossible to feel depressed if you're sleeping in a brown and blue bed. A magical third color to add is taupe. Throw taupe into the mix, and watch out. It's beyond fabulous."

Adler warns, however, that the combination of lime green and brown is ascending quickly and attempting to overtake brown and blue's reign. Even if the rogue lime green makes inroads, he says, the pairing lacks the timeless quality of the brown-blue matchup, and is likely to outlast other color fads, such as the 1980s teal debacle.

Adams, who borrows colors and designs from nature for her graphics, has another theory as to why brown and blue are thriving in popularity, and why the combination will be around long after the last blue and brown martini glass from Pottery Barn has been recycled into a Dr. Pepper bottle.

''I would think the origin of the combination is earth and sky," says Adams. ''That's my theory. But it all depends on your perspective. If you live in New York you may think Tiffany and chocolates. But I live on the coast of Maine, so what I see is earth and sky."

Christopher Muther can be reached at muther@globe.com.