CURVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (25)

By: Mariane Cara
September 12, 2023

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of reconsidered passions, reassessed hates, and reversed feelings everywhere in-between. Series edited by Adam McGovern.

COLORTELLING

To a physicist, color is light. For a painter, it is expression. For a psychologist, it is mood. A semiotician would agree with all of the above, and add that color is the purest Peircean firstness, a mere visual possibility that depends on interpretations residing in the mind of the beholder, full of cultural influence.

Now it is up to you: what comes to your mind when you think about orange? A tone named after a specific fruit, but which could easily be called Clementine (much more orange than the orange itself). Or Persimmon, why not? Honestly, it is a color that works even better among vegetables, like pumpkins and carrots. And should we overlook salmon? Even the tastiest fish cannot escape this chromatic banquet.

And what about if I ask you to imagine an orange person? In your culture, might it suggest the opposite of the spirit of those who are prone to the blues? If yes, then you are on to my 1990s and early 2000s profile: all energy and vibration. At that point, my wardrobe was alight with things so orange that I decided to adopt a peculiar antic: dressing in vivid shades like tangerine or apricot for all my 3×4 photos. Since ID-sized photos looked awful, mine would become as ludicrous as could be.

I enthusiastically showcased this idiosyncratic color preference until my friend Cristina decided to carry out an in-depth analysis to rethink the tones of my attire. A straightforward discovery! My palette was called “Warm/True Autumn”: nothing could be more obviously orange than that.

The time came when I had had enough of this tonal feast. Around the end of 2019, I felt it was the moment to replace some high-temperature tones I had indulged in with more levelheaded options. Since then, my personal style has taken on new meanings, also expressed in shades of lavender, verbena, lilac, orchid and hydrangea. Colors associated with flowers that seem to hark back to pleasant scents, beautifully combining the profound stability of blue and the superb vitality of red.

I admit that my mood transformation — from appetizing orange to aromatic purple — has been very significant. At present, I am prepping for what I intend to be the whimsical and purplish phase of my near future. Sort of what Jenny Joseph suggests in her poem Warning:

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

***

MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

CURVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (25)

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