My Rainbow: Orange and Yellow

This is the second of a series of colour themed posts. It was going to be one article about the colours I wear and the colours I wish I wore, but I realised I had too much to write, so it became a series! Make sure you check out the rest of My Rainbow!

Orange is not a colour I wear, or have worn since I was a child, except perhaps as a minor part of a colourful print, or unless you count carrying an orange book as accessorising. I like the colour black, and its presence in my wardrobe is only second to purple, so at some point I put every colour I wear with black, and if I was to wear orange and black, I would look like Halloween incarnate. I always dress on the dark side, and I love pointed hats and black cats, but wearing black and orange would just make me feel like the costume shop or Marks and Spencer’s Halloween-sweet stand vomited on me. Also, my skin tone and orange do not look best together. I don’t have any problems with orange as a colour. I don’t recoil when I see it – it’s not acid green, or beige – but I don’t seek it out, and I’ve never loved it.

To the right you can see the only orange I really own - some old carrier bags from shops I may not have actually visited. Below you can see a piece of yellow paper that I have blu-tacked to the front of a shelf. The quote is by Peter Brook.

My attitude to yellow is similar, but nostalgia seeps in and influences my view. When I was a child my favourite colour was yellow. I had my bedroom decorated with yellow wallpaper (with a Forever Friends border, duvet cover, pillowcases, lightshade, and toy box) for years until I discovered the wonder that is purple and changed my colour allegiance. Purple suited my moody, difficult teenage years, but yellow was the colour of my bright, hopeful, childhood. It is a sunny, happy colour, and it made me feel warm. I remember when me and my sister would dress in shorts and t-shirts and lay blue fabric over part of my sandy-coloured carpet, and we would pretend we were at the beach, with the sun shining. We would paddle in the blue dresses and scarves and lay down on top of them to mime swimming. I liked to put my sunglasses on and lay back on the carpet, pretending I was sunbathing, whilst reading a book. If my room has been a duller colour, it wouldn't have been so effective and fun.

I don’t wear yellow; I can’t think of a single yellow item in my wardrobe, however, I do like pale yellow. I think that it would suit my skin tone, and would not look garish with black. I’d like a pale yellow dress, with frills or without, to wear with black lace-up boots and a shawl. I also think that yellow looks nice on home furnishings. I have a yellow sofa in my house, and I think the colour adds to its calming abilities. But I wouldn't want too much yellow - it clashes with purple, after all!

People who really like orange and whose thoughts on the colour are therefore less tainted with dislike:

Tricia of bits and bobbins

Jessica of How about orange?

A Yellow Song That Is Not ‘Yellow’ By Coldplay, the obvious choice:

Head Automatica – At The Speed Of A Yellow Bullet (I don’t think yellow is mentioned anywhere other than the title, but it’s energetic and fast and dance-y, which I think are very yellow properties.)

Sorry, no orange song, but any recommendations would be appreciated! 'Oranges and Lemons', as in the nursery rhyme, is quite catchy...

So what’s your relationship to the colours orange and yellow? Do you think that black and orange can be worn without making one look like Halloween personified? What colours did you wear once upon a time but have stopped wearing recently? I’m nosy, let me know!