The secret lives of color, a review of the podcast episode with Kassia St. Clair.
Spotify The Secret Lives of Color
Color terminology changed over decades, and that was what piked Kassia St. Clair’s curiosity - the entry point. The whole episode reinforced my belief that everything goes back to money, economic interests and trade. It’s way more about the availability and perceived value of pigments than the shades themselves. The following is a wrap up of every fact that I’d like to remember in 10 years from now from the episode, mixed with personal reflections.
Tones of Red
Red seems to be the most impactful color on humans, the most studied and one of the oldest pigments, seen in the most amount of cultures. Football teams wearing red have won more than others.
The chemicals forming the red pigment are easily found in nature, all over the world. A reflection on how the availability of a material shapes culture and usage. Do colors make humans have a physical response? We want brighter red, despite what nature gives is. Later in the episode, the host wraps it up nicely saying that we, humans, love shiny and bright colors. “Food, shelter and bright colors”.
Scarlett was initially made with an european insect and then became synonymous with red, again by being a brighter shade of the more soft tones. It’s more expensive to import and therefore, widely saught over. We still use insects to make color, for extracts that turn into colorants used in food or make up. Orange used to be referred to as yellow red & the fruit came first. The lesson here seems to be that humans associate familiar concepts and string them together, until they start leading a life of their own.
Royalty and the rise of purple
the cultural ties go very far back in history. Tyrian purple, comes from 2 varieties of shellfish. When rubbed, becomes different colors until its final form in purple, which turns out to be very vibrant. With an understanding of society power dynamics, you’d be correct to assume that due to being expensive, it became associated with power.
So when did purple become common to wear? Political turmoil disrupted manufacturing of the shellfish dye until the 19th century, when a new mauve purple dye was discovered.
It made for what’s described as a revolution in synthetic dyes, not using any insects, impacting the whole textile industry. Success happened almost by chance. The inventor convinced a few people to use it, and one of them sold a gown to queen Victoria using the mauve color. It became a fashion trend, thus making syntetic dyes as opposed to natural pigment acceptable for the industry, where there was initially some fear and reservation.
Marketing, networking and relationships - ultimately the skill of selling your idea - is the reason why there’s so much purple nowadays.
Lavender was definitely a fashion trend over the last 3 years. I haven’t researched this, but as a certified lover of all things purple, I’ve watched as all kinds of lavender items have been manufactured. I have a purple trench, purple corduroy pants, purple power bank, purple phone, purple tshirt, purple sheets (which by the way were very difficult to find in the specific shade my determined mind wanted). And I go to a purple university.
Virgin Mary’s feminine blue, old time influencers and why I’d like to live until 2300
Blue is now the most popular color amongst men and women. But it wasn’t always like that. In the ancient world, until 14th century, blue was not associated with good things.
The cult of Virgin Mary made blue popular again, a symbol of trustworthiness. Artists would use a very expensive pigment of it to showcase their devotion to Virgin Mary, again a sign of a correlation between low supply and value. Up until 150 years ago, pink was seen as pale red and therefore a boy’s color and blue was seen as a girl’s color - more feminine and dainty than pink, due to the Virgin Mary association.
Few people dictated the shapes of the world. It makes me wonder what other major political and cultural events and technological innovations will come to be the Queen Victoria and Virgin Maries of our time and how might companies adapt their branding. Many of the companies we have now originated in the 20th century, and many more will emerge in the 21st. The Brian Johnson dream of living up to 200 years old just started to appeal to me: imagine how interesting it will be to be a color researcher in 2300 looking at the median color used for company logos, studying the most effective colors for particular demographics, the colors most present in our Instagram feeds and how all those data points will have changed by 2300.