Green is cool, but its fun factor is ramped up when mixed with orange and yellow, which both sit on the warm side of things without getting too hot. All together there is an ease to this colour combination, perhaps because each colour transitions into the next on the spectrum. Truly, this combination is citrus personified – summery, sunny, and whimsical while maintaining a certain sourness, thus preventing the whole thing from being too cute to tolerate.
Orange is the colour of autumn, and of the 1970s, so even though an autumnal palette simultaneously evokes warmth and the cozy crispness of fall, it can also cause traumatic flashbacks to shag carpeting, brutalist architecture, and questionable fashions.
Blue is similarly contradictory. It is well loved, and ubiquitous in both fashion and administrative work, but this popularity is exactly what makes it so basic, so safe, so essentially neutral.
It is these dichotomies that make the pairing of orange and blue so daring. Orange is one of the most controversial colours (only yellow is more difficult to pull off), and blue is the most agreeable. Together they allow for rather low-risk experimentation.
Orange is optimism and cheerfulness. It is youthful without being infantile and warm without being hot. Green is abundance, wealth, and growth. It is calming but never stagnant. Together, green and orange are ebullient and comforting. A walk in the park on a sunny day. Do be careful though, to wear sunscreen during your walk, because orange also represents danger, and green can be sickly.
Orange is happy,
fun.
The taste of orange is that of oranges,
juicy, yummy sweet.
The sound of orange is laughing,
good time, good mood.
The feel of orange is that of oranges
without the peel,
squeeze.
Orange is there,
running, jumping,
good.
Not the best,
not in demand,
but good.
Peach is a little bit orange, a little bit pink. A refreshing fruit smoothie on a hot summer day. Purple is the intersection of blue and red, and carries all the intellectual superiority of blue, with all the dangerous passion of red, making purple an arrogant elitist of the highest order.
Purple doesn’t like to share the spotlight, but Peach comes in as a friendly, unassuming friend, and promptly takes over, turning Purple into nothing but an accessory, as in the outfit above. Purple is, of course, aghast at first, but then realizes this is a chance to relax for a bit. She doesn’t always have to be in charge.
These two won’t spend a long time together though, because Purple can only be ignored for so long. She will come to resent Peach’s bubbly dominance, and push her to the side. Purple isn’t used to competition, she sees herself as a de facto winner. Peach is amused by this resentment and plays along for a while, pretending to be surprised, but eventually she will move on without putting up too much of a fight, because she’s got better things to do with her time, like spread joy wherever she goes. If Purple can’t appreciate that, it’s none of Peach’s concern.
It was a sunny summer day. The sky was bright and the birds were chirping. Orange and Blue went to the park together to play Frisbee and eat ice cream while looking up at the clouds. Blue can be melancholy sometimes but Orange always cheers her right up. Blue gets brighter whenever she’s with Orange and together they make plans for all the amazing things they’ll do together.
Orange and Blue are a classic case of opposites attract, sitting directly opposite each other on the colour wheel, their toes tickling each other and causing everyone around them to catch their infectious giggles. Together they are fun, loud, and amusing, but still reasonable. Blue is often too reasonable. When she’s navy she’s nearly boring, but a dash of something bright and cheerful makes everything better.
Blue has a train to catch, because she needs to go on a long trip to contemplate her existence. She packs her bags thoughtfully as Orange dances around her and makes wild suggestions about what she might need to bring on her trip. At the last minute Orange begs to come along, and though Blue often enjoys solitude, she is happy to share her space, especially with someone so sunny and cheery. They sit on the train together, Blue calm and sedate, looking out the window at the scenery that goes by while Orange bounces up and down in her seat, commenting on everything she sees. Blue smiles and nods. Orange, excited to be there, squeezes Blue’s hand in excitement. Blue squeezes back and they smile at each other, utterly content.
Green and Orange are really good friends, even though in many ways they’re opposites. Green is introspective and mature, while Orange is a ray of sunshine who just wants to have fun.
Orange never overthinks things, while Green is extremely contemplative. Yet Orange is also rather accommodating and is happy to follow Green’s lead. Orange works great as an accent in an outfit that is dominantly Green, but Orange is also always available to steal the spotlight, and sometimes does so inevitably because she’s loud and impossible to ignore.
Some might find Orange too loud, too overwhelming, and for that reason they appreciate Green’s presence, as a stabilizing and calming influence on Orange. But Green doesn’t try to overshadow Orange, and couldn’t even if she tried. Even just a pop of Orange is enough to remind people that she’s there. Orange will not be ignored, and Green is happy to have her there because she’s so supportive as a friend. Together they are like yin and yang, complimenting as much as they contrast.
Last week we saw Green hanging out with Pink, but when Pink went clubbing after a fun day out, Green went home to hang out with Orange. Orange was happy to welcome Green, and together they watched TV while talking about their respective days. Orange wasn’t jealous about Green’s friendship with Pink, because Orange had her own thing going during the day, with Blue. Oh, the adventures they had! Tune in next week to hear all about it!
Orange is the colour of joy, optimism, and cheerfulness. It is youthful without being infantilizing and warm without being hot. Apparently orange also stimulates the appetite which is no doubt why it’s often used in decor within fast food restaurants. I imagine many children have asked themselves why oranges, the fruit, are named after the colour, while strawberries are not called reds, and bananas are not called yellows. But in fact, the colour orange is named after the fruit. In the before times, the colour was called yellow-red, and the word orange as we now know it came into use in the 16th century. It was derived from the Sanskirt naranga, which literally means “orange tree”.
Orange is also the colour of autumn, and of the 1970s, so even though an autumnal palette simultaneously evokes warmth and the crispness of fall, it can also cause traumatic flashbacks to shag carpeting, brutalist architecture, and questionable fashions.
Where I live, in Montreal, there is a metro station called Lionel-Groulx, which opened in 1978. This explains why the floor is patterned in circles of varying shades of orange. It is extremely trippy to look at and can even cause vertigo if you stare at it for too long, which you will because it is so mesmerizing. For my orangespiration board I brought Casimir, the French dinosaur from the ’70s, to Lionel-Groulx for a photo shoot and no pairing has ever felt more natural. But let’s not assume orange must remain in the ’70s, where it was deployed for evil. Orange is undeniably fun but can also be modern and edgy when done right. I won’t claim that I’ve successfully made orange edgy, but I’ve made it cute, and for me that’ll have to be close enough.
I made this maxi dress because I wanted something to cover my legs in the summer so as to avoid wearing sunblock. As someone who is both anemic and Scandinavian, I cannot be out in the sun for more than two minutes without bursting into flames, but sunblock is gross, and I’m lazy. Turns out though that maxi dresses are kind of difficult to walk in. They’re great for standing still while the fabric sways in the breeze but when you’ve got somewhere to be a long skirt can trip you up, quite literally, especially if you’ve not hemmed it properly. How did women do it back in the day? I guess they were so busy being considered the property of men that getting their legs wrapped up in their skirts was the least of their problems.
