Is Small Town Fashion behind the times?

When you get to my time of life, you tend to wear clothes that suit you and hope that perhaps some up-to-the-minute accessories will prevent you looking utterly dowdy!

This is the sort of 'country style' I would expect from a small town in Wales with just a nod towards recent fashion with the Tangerine scarf and the Black and White dress. Not one of these colours is from the Pantone Spring/Summer 2013 forecast though.

I have absolutely no intention of dressing in Neon Yellow - or any other Neon colour, for that matter! And I'll gladly leave platform-soled shoes behind in the Seventies. 

Still plenty of stripes, polka dots and checks are everywhere. But the only sign of the chevrons that I've noticed abounding on shopping websites, was on some Kleenex boxes!

So noticing the latest trends in our local shops hadn't been a priority for quite some time. 

I found a lot of this very bright blue for both womens and menswear. (It was such a sunny day when I took these photos that reflections in the shop windows were a problem and made some of the blues look less bright than they really were.)

Once again the British Heart Foundation charity shop (check shirt, blue skirt and 'Poppies' floral dress) had clearly made more effort with their window-dressing than any of the other charity shops!

But then came the Surface Pattern course I took last winter. And it set me exercises that sent me off to the shops with my camera for precisely that purpose. 

Bright Pink with Turquoise seems to remain popular in spite of not being what Pantone forecasted!

And when I put on my 'designer's hat', it's useful for me know what people are looking for. 

Black and white was by far the most obvious 'trend' and I thought it was quite a novel idea to apply it to a nautical  pattern (the anchors) instead of the usual navy blue.

Abergavenny is a very small town. But it has plenty of upmarket, locally owned boutiques as well as small branches of some of the national chains. Quite a good cross-section of the clothing market, I think.

These I love! In fact I have a genuine 1930s aubergine-coloured lace dress in this style tucked away somewhere in my loft. I always intended to get  it repaired so that I could wear it but it's one of those things I never got around to.

The question is: Do I look to the online trend reports with their super-skinny models and fantastical clothes that often look as they've come straight from the costume hamper of a pantomime? Or do I look to the shops to see what people are actually buying? 

And, most importantly, is there a difference?

What do you think?

Farewell Tangerine Tango - Welcome Emerald Green!

As the year draws to a close, the 2012 Pantone Colour of the Year, Tangerine Tango, has finally fallen from grace to be replaced in 2013 by Emerald Green.

And I for one am heartily glad to see the back of orange - it’s one of my least favourite colours!

It is known to be an attention-grabbing colour, it's used in Dayglo and advertising, generally at the cheaper end of the market and I was surprised when Sainsbury’s abandoned their nicely restrained blue, green and white carrier bags in favour of orange ones. I’ve also been somewhat aghast that orange has crept into some otherwise quite classy websites recently!

It's not helped by the fact that I also associate orange with some of the worst aspects of the Seventies’ interiors, with their furry nylon orange cushions brightening up their (furry) brown suites of furniture or orange shag-pile rugs on their brown carpets! I never did like that colour combination!

And yet . . .

I love orange Icelandic Poppies, Pot Margigolds and Nasturtiums. I’ve often painted them and used the paintings to create greeting cards and products on Zazzle. And I am happy for the orange Californian Poppies to seed themselves all over my garden, including in the gravel paths!

 

 

And the orange colours of the trees in Autumn and orange pumpkins for Halloween - I have no problem at all with them!

I often include bright orange in my pattern designs, such as the one above, usually in conjunction with bright pink; and a glowing orange highlight is often just what I feel is needed to balance a chilly blue/green/white colour palette -

 

 - and I've even used a soft orange - rather like the colour of the flesh of a delicious ripe mango! - as an accent colour in my predominantly blue/green/white guest bedroom! (maybe difficult to see on the photo but the curtain is dark blue and the wallpaper is green)






So what is going on with me?

I found a clue in one of my books on 'Colour'. It said that orange is a ‘somewhat shallow colour, lacking in character.’ It went on to point out that there are no sayings associated with orange, such as ‘feeling blue’, ‘seeing red’, ‘green with envy’ etc. And I think it’s interesting that we don’t talk about ‘orange’ hair, an 'orange brick wall', an ‘orange’ cat or an ‘orangefish’; we substitute red, ginger and gold for the word ‘orange’.

As a dye, orange arrived relatively late in the day, there being no natural plant pigment for orange dyes. And it is arguably the only colour that can only be a warm colour; for instance, red can be warm or cool, as can yellow, blue, purple and green but not so orange. It’s always immutably warm.

I think what it boils down to for me is that while plain orange looks brash and ‘lacking in character’, Mother Nature rarely uses plain orange. 

The oranges of the trees, the pumpkins and the flowers that I love are a mixture of hues within the orange spectrum, ranging from a glowing, golden orange to the more muted earthy ‘terra cotta’ and ‘brick’ which, although they may be man-made, consist of essentially natural ingredients.

I’ve tried to achieve that more muted version of orange in some of my patterns, such as the dog-tooth check below, rather than use the plain, unadulterated orange of the solid colour.

So maybe I don't dislike orange as much as my first reaction to it suggests. 

But even so, as we say farewell to Tangerine Tango, I’m looking forward to welcoming Emerald Green and exploring its possibilities.

How about you?