An Observation on Orange

May 24, 2006

Okay, who would have guessed that J Crew has sold out for the season their "tangy orange" Bermuda shorts with embroidered yellow crab critters? I know this because I was on their website today to order them and they were not there, only the kelly green critter shorts are left. They are currently searching every store in the country to find my orange critter shorts for me.
Why did I dally? I knew I loved them the first time I saw them in one of the seemingly weekly catalogs they send. The reason was the very fact that they were "tangy orange". I thought this color was just too crazy to actually wear. But clearly I changed my mind because I was trying to order them today.

My feelings on orange have been changing for quite a while. My first dealings with the color include life jackets, carrots and the absolutely dreadful orange vanity in the downstairs bathroom of the house I grew up in. (yes, the house was built in the 70s!) I am quite sure that my dislike of orange continued all the way through college. It is sometime thereafter that the color started to change for me. I bought my first Hermes scarf in 2000 and I still have the beautiful bright orange box.  Hermes loves orange! How can they be wrong?

Of course I probably owe a lot to Christo and Jeanne Claude and their brilliant Gates exhibit in New York last year.

That totally did it for me, the orange juxtaposed against the bleak colors of the New York winter was brilliant and beautiful. These days orange is extremely common in both fashion and home fashion. Today I was surprised to see that a normally traditional home décor company (Peacock Alley) is offering bright orange "kumquat" linen accessories! Their show bed features a bright orange pillow against traditional blues and white.... again - brilliant!

Love live orange!