Question Item icon color changing

Hi, I'd like to know if it's possible to load a specific icon from the default resource pack and modify the color using code.
Like, have a Diamond Sword that instead of being Blue is completely White without the use of another resource pack and would make the item available to everyone. (In a Plugin instead of a Mod as well, since this would need to be on a Craftbukkit/Spigot server.)
Applying a filter isn't too bad in Java, but the thing I'm wondering is (can use "custom" icons which would only be the real one with a color-filter applied over the original texture.)

I'm pretty sure there's a way to do this, but since I'm not well developed on Java yet I'm not sure ^^.
(I've learned a bit of all of HTML, PHP, JavaScript, C, C# and C++(I'm currently working on my own SDL2.0 game...), but not Java yet.)

 

@Avarthar
You can't change the appearance of an item without using resourcepacks.

If you want to "create" a new item, you can use one of the data variants. This will allow you to have diamond swords, while also having your white sword for one of the values. You can use this to add damage varients: