Wow, what a joy to wake up this morning and see comments from yesterday's post. It is so like sending messages in bottles, and seeing replies wash up on shore! And it helps me get to know you better. Our colour preferences are so emotional, so tied up with our identity.
Yesterday I wrote that I used to hate grey because I pictured it with black and purple, and couldn't get that image out of my head. Wish I had a photo: a flash of a memory, perhaps a mannequin on a high street in London in the late 90s: cheap grey pin striped suit, on WOMEN... waist coats worn over shiny synthetic black shirts with big lapels, touches of lavender... sorry, I will never like that look.
UNTIL.. the Photodiarist pointed out: "But wait a minute . . . what if the purple is vibrant and bright? Why not with grey?" and I realised: there is ALWAYS a look that will work, if you just look at it from a different angle.
Mr. Dot & I were crossing the Wobbly Bridge, as everyone calls it, leaving the Tate, and we both saw Elizabeth (or, Effy) moving at a fast clip. When I caught up with her & asked to shoot her for my blog, she hesitated as she thought she looked bad that day. (I'm always amazed when people say that: I wonder, if this is their style on a bad day, what else they've got up their fashionable sleeve!)
I love her wonderful red suede elf shoes. I say I never like red, but shoes are the one place I make an exception. She had such an unpredictable, subtle, sophisticated colour sense. I asked if she was in fashion and she said no, she's an artist. Of course.
Effy wrote me later to say she was feeling a bit low that day, and when I asked to shoot her, it made her day. Which makes MY day.
What first caught my eye was her big blue Peony, ironically, as I'd just drank my first White Peony tea, but then.. look at this, she's got this steel blue greenish grey trench working with some kind of black net skirt poking out, and PURPLE TASSLE SOCKS!!! The very combination I said would never work.
I so love being proved wrong.
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