Blue and green should never be seen

We had an interesting discussion the other day in the office about redheads. (No, not Red Ed!) When I was younger I wore a lot of green. Two factors were responsible for this – my mother and my hair colour! I was blessed as a child with a warm, caring mother (but one with strong views about most things). I also possessed a rather striking hair colour.

At school I had the misfortune to be labelled ‘ginger’, which wasn’t nearly as fashionable or desirable as it currently is. At home, my mother insisted proudly that it was ‘auburn’ and so it probably was. Less prejudiced, less culturally-conditioned adults admired it. However, I probably suffered just as much, as a rather shy child, from their compliments as I did from my schoolmates’ teasing. My mother’s friends and total strangers, in the shops or even on the bus, would stop my mother and say admiringly, above my head, “Hasn’t she got lovely hair?” I would shrink away behind my mother, blushing a deeper colour even than my hair, but at least able to privately cherish the compliments later.

Not all colours match well with red hair! Red, for one, purple, pink and so on, do not. “Green” my mother said firmly, “green is your colour.” As a child, my school uniform was always navy blue, but away from school, the favourite colour (my mother’s favourite) was green. I was fortunate there are so many different shades of green.

I loved dancing and attended ballet and tap dancing classes every week in the London suburb where we lived. For the dance show one year we all wore pixie outfits in various colours – a little tutu and a pixie hat with petals and a stalk on top. Mine? Brilliant emerald green, of course. Actually, I loved it!

Colours have moods and atmospheres and as I grew up I shied away from blue. It was enough to wear it for school each day and I didn’t like school that much. Later on, of course, I had to wear the regulation blue denim jeans that all my friends wore, but that was different. They made me feel good - at one with my generation and a bit of a rebel. But my primary colours were drawn from an autumnal palette – oranges, browns, yellows and, of course, greens. When you have ginger (auburn) hair, you wear green… and whatever colours go with it.

Over the years, my tastes have changed. In my thirties I had a good friend, some years older than me, who wore beautiful, flowing ‘arty’ clothes and jewellery that I much admired. Cherrie wore shades of turquoise, Wedgewood blue, aqua-marine and purple. Her home furnishings followed the same pattern and gradually my tastes began to change. I began to sense new possibilities.

In later life, nature has given me another fashion hint! No longer is my hair that vibrant colour that clashes so violently with pinks and purples. Over the years it has faded, first of all to a rather enviable pale gold (I liked that stage), followed by one that gives the impression of deliberate highlights (although I’ve never paid for any!). Finally, most of the extravagant colour is gone and I am on my way to light grey. Whilst still adjusting to this fact, I met a friend of a friend I had known in London in my twenties and was insulted and hurt when she commented “I don’t remember … did you maybe have ginger hair once?” I was outraged that I had remained so tenuously in her memory that she couldn’t even remember my hair colour! But, more than that, I had to come to terms with the fact that my present head of hair gave her very few clues.

However, every cloud has a silver lining and mine was no exception. My new grey hair (could I maybe call it silver?) opened the door to a whole new adventure in colour! I love colour and now I could experiment with the whole spectrum. Nearly every colour was permissible. My wardrobe is now full of a whole rainbow of soft greens, subtle browns and beiges, peach, purple, shocking red, gorgeous turquoises and cherry pink and I can mix and match to my heart’s content.

One more thing – the popular adage of my youth, often quoted by my mother and her generation: “blue and green should never be seen” has been proved to be a myth. I regularly mix blues, turquoises, sea greens, emerald and other such delights in both clothing and home decorating – and it works! The seaside is one of my great loves. The countryside is another. Nature has, it seems, designed itself to include both sides of the colour spectrum – blues and greens – in its own mix and match scheme, defying any rules we may think appropriate.

Colours for every season and mood: some encouraging relaxation, some vibrant with energy and motivating us to decisive action. These days, interior designers, fashion experts, counsellors and psychologists, as well as New Age therapists, know how to exploit these and I am enjoying the results to the full.