By: Mary Khon
Greetings and Salutations, Queeridos!
This is your Antiquated Queen coming to you all the way from the foggy bay area. That’s right, queeridos, the fog that usually adorns the “City by the Bay” has extended its reach all the way to the East Bay Area, so I feel I’m living in London, England.
It is September and I am ready to start pulling out those cute cardigan sweaters, light jackets, and dark color pants I so much love to wear during the fall season, which in return will get me ready for the layered winter fashion looks starting in November.
This is what I love about the San Francisco Bay Area, queeridos. At least in the area where I live. There is wind, there is a cool breeze, there is fog, it is almost always overcast, and when it is sunny, it’s sunny. So, I can wear pretty much light sweaters and light jackets and hoodies during the spring and summer and then start pulling out the heavy sweaters and jackets for late autumn and the winters. That said, global warming is changing the weather patterns so at times, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to wear.
But I digress. This column is not about colors in the season. If this doesn’t make sense to you, do not fret, this Antiquated Queen is here to help.
Let’s start with a question: Do you ever think in color? Yes, you heard me right, “think in color.” I, for example, think of the colors red, orange and dark yellows when I speak of summer and of the colors dark blue and white when I speak of winter. I identify spring with the green color and fall with the color brown. Do you find this strange? I hope so. I hate to be thought as ordinary.
There is a whole theory about color, which takes into consideration the huge, the value and the chroma of a color in order to identify whether the color is a warm, cool, or neutral color. I’m not going to get into that because it takes too long and, frankly, I’m not an expert on the matter. What I know is that cool colors are for summer and winter while warm colors are for spring and autumn. I also know that light colors are for summer and spring while deep colors are for autumn and winter. So, if you take the color wheel and divide it into four equal parts, you’ll find that light greens and yellows belong in spring, dark yellow, orange and red belong in autumn, dark red and purples belong in winter, and light purples, blues, and aqua colors belong in summer.
Because I’m an antiquated queen but not an ordinary one, naturally, I break the rules of the game all the time. Earlier I mentioned that I think in red, dark yellow and orange when I speak of summers and dark blues and whites when I speak of winters. My color thought process doesn’t match the seasons’ colors according to the color theory. Why is that? Because I associate the seasons with temperature while also identifying colors the same way. For me, orange and yellow belong in the “hot temperatures” while whites and blues belong in the “cool temperatures.” This means that green belongs in the “warm and cool temperatures,” while browns belong in the cool and “chilly temperatures.” I hope that this makes sense, because the only reason I’m talking about it is because fall is approaching and all I can think about is how the red, oranges and dark yellows of the summer are slowly turning into brown colors. Weird, uh?
Believe it or not, even if you don’t care about color theory and even if you don’t ever stop to think if you actually “think in color,” most likely and subconsciously you think in color when picking out outfits to wear. And no, I don’t mean your favorite color or buying a ‘red shirt’ or a blue pair of pants, you actually think in color depending on the season. You will find yourself wearing bright and light colors during the summer and the spring and more dull and dark colors during the autumn and winter. You may not consciously think of it, but you do it. If you don’t believe me, check your wardrobe. So, while you may not think in color, you do practice it to a certain extent.
My thinking of color also goes beyond the seasons. I, for instance, think in red when I hear about an accident, think in pink when I hear about love, think in gray when I hear about sadness, think in black when I hear about death, and think of orange when I hear about the month of October. I told you I’m an antiquated queen but never an ordinary one.
The point of all this is that fall is approaching, and my life is turning into brown colors, which coincidently is also the color of my skin, and that’s a cool color to be.