Colour Me Happy

‘Why don’t you ever wear red?’ asked my colourful friend D while we were having  coffee and cake at the local garden centre.

Oh let me think – it matches my eyes, I’d be visible from half a mile away, people would mistake me for a phone box, or try and post letters in my mouth ..  the list goes on!  Red is for confident, ambitious, go-getting girlies with jobs in PR and boyfriends with sports cars – not an over 40 (well over 40), garden loving, cake eater like myself.

Giovanna Battaglia

Memorandum fashion blog for professional women new york city street style work wear

‘But you never wear colour’.  ‘I do’, I protested, then mentally ran through my monochrome wardrobe desperately searching for evidence to the contrary.  Ok, she had me.

If one thing has become apparent from my obsession with Pinterest it’s that I do love colour, but I’m not confident wearing it.  I like to blend in to the nearest wall.  I’ve been in one uniform or another since school days – brown, navy blue, black.  Seems I’m still putting myself in a self-imposed ‘uniform’.

‘It’s chic’ I argued.  ‘It’s lazy!’ came her reply.  Well I admit it’s hard to go wrong with black, white and grey..

So that got me wondering, do people make assumptions based not only on what you wear but the colour of it too?  I’ve not really paid it much attention before but at some point I need to find gainful employment and now my one interview dress could portray me as lazy and lacking in vision – not great if I want a more creative career.

Perhaps it’s not doing my romantic prospects much good either – ‘Hey I’m fun, I’m vibrant – I’m in taupe!’.

So it looks like I need to inject a bit of colour in to my life and having thought about it for a few days I’m quite excited at the prospect.

Now, where to begin …

illustration by Stephanie Jimenez