Life in Color Excerpt

Color scares me. When Jesse asked if I would write the intro to his and Joe's new book, I replied, "What would a 'whimsical/chic/rocked out' who loves black and gray know about color?" I told him I would think about it since I was so busy sorting my black t-shirts by sleeve length, v-neck, scoop neck, Henley, crew neck, bedazzled, J.Crew, and designer. But being in the blanket of black T's got me thinking. What happened? I used to wear color. I used to love color. I was a color person.

In the 80's I wore a shocking pink taffeta Vicky Tiel gown with matching shoes and gloves to the Academy Awards. There was that acid green Yohji Yamamoto 3 piece satin suit I wore to my 10th high school reunion. Somewhat recently, there was a turquoise Juicy Couture sweat suit I wore one summer, even though I did more eating than sweating in it. All this remembrance of raiments past made me nostalgic for something. I missed color. When I think back on my favorite dresses so many of them were colorful. I loved bright floral prints more than I liked stripes or graphic prints. I liked color blocking, where one bright color was on top and another on the bottom. I used to layer 2 different colored t-shirts over a pair of jeans. A bright colored purse or scarf thrilled me. A coral necklace made me quiver.

But there was also some uncertainty about color. I knew some colors looked better on me than others, but didn't quite know why. I knew yellow looked better on my blonde girlfriends while I looked like a fire hydrant in it. Lavender, which always looked so luscious on the hanger, made me look like last year's lilacs. On me, light greens, the color of doctor's scrubs, made me look as if I should be on a stretcher being rushed to the hospital. All the uncertainty of which colors actually looked good on me made wearing color too much of a gamble. Color was hard. It was easier to just wear what was safe. That's when I started the descent into darkness.