All Shades of Grey

Grey is so much more of an interesting colour than black. There are a myriad shades – certainly more than fifty – between the warm and cool ends of the spectrum. I always love to look at Wikipedia’s colour palettes not because I’m so sure they are universally accurate, but because the names are often so evocative.

The list of grey is quite short compared to other shades, but here they are: ash grey, battleship grey, blue-grey, cadet grey, charcoal, cool grey, Davy's grey (a dark grey shade named after an English landscape painter), Payne's grey (a dark blue-grey, also named after a painter, of watercolours in this case), gunmetal, platinum, silver, slate grey, taupe, purple taupe, medium taupe, rose quartz, taupe grey, and timberwolf (a light, warm grey).

Some of my own designations that I have used are dove grey, a warm grey the shade of a turtledove’s feathers; cloud, a tone I named after a very pale, icy grey blouse I bought online; smoke, pewter and mushroom, which are self-explanatory.

One of the lovely aspects of this shade is that it can be faintly tinted by any colour of the rainbow, and still remain grey – therein lies its beauty. Grey also goes with every other colour, so it’s easy to mix and match colours with it, if that is a challenge for some.

Genevieve Antoine Dariaux’s book A Guide to Elegance, first published in 1964, and updated in 2003, is a quaint relic of its time, but it still contains plenty of useful information. She has an exhaustive entry on wearing colour, and includes a very practical list of a few successful colour matches.

With pale grey she suggests wearing: browns, dark greens, dark grey, red. (I would certainly include black and white too.)

With dark grey: beige, black, all the pale and bright colours. (And white.)

I also love to mix different shades of grey, and find it particularly fun to mix cool and warm shades. Sometimes at first glance it seems a little wrong, but that is exactly what I love about it. It’s also unexpected. With such neutral garments, I will definitely wear at least a bright lipstick with it, in a true red (my current favourite, Poinsettia by Revlon) or dark pink (Cherries in the Snow, or Cherry Pop, also by Revlon). It is alternatively a great opportunity to add just one accessory in some vivid colour to have it really stand out.

Fashion Notes

In my first outfit I am mixing warm and cool shades, with a vintage 40s hat in a cool bluish tone, a very pale silk chiffon blouse, and a pewter skirt that by virtue of its taffeta fabric changes dramatically in the light. The shoes are a medium taupe, the warmth of this shade increased by proximity to such cool shades of grey. They don’t look quite so brown seen on their own.

The second outfit includes two warmer shades in the singlet (mushroom) and cord jeans (old favourites that tragically wore out – ‘dim grey’ according to Wikipedia) and a mid-grey wool shawl that has a tinge of lilac in it.

In the last picture I am wearing a wool jumper I was forced to buy because of cool weather, in Dubai of all places! I was there on holiday and attending a party on a yacht, and I had a terrible time trying to find a sweater in that desert city. This one is only a wool blend – 100% wool jumpers simply did not exist there. It’s from Zara, and contains only 15% alpaca, with the rest a mix of acrylic and nylon, but I call it one of my super-jumpers. It is such a warm grey it is on the cusp of brown. I still love it.

So you can see how though I am still wearing monochrome across all these outfits, all the various shades make it look like I am actually wearing colour. It's still moody, but not gloomy; sophisticated and soft. It can be as dramatic as black at the extreme ends of the spectrum, but it's not quite as harsh or stark. It’s also more forgiving, as you can find a grey to suit you whatever your complexion. And it’s far more adventurous than wearing plain old black every day.

Photos: July–August 2013

The Little Black Dress of Yore

I don’t need to much go into the history or origin of the famous ‘Little Black Dress’ as except to mention that it was Coco Chanel who brought it in fashion, rescuing it from its relegation to traditional mourning wear. (The irony of my lamenting the incessant donning of ‘widow’s weeds’ prevalent today is not lost on me.)

American Vogue dubbed it in 1926, ‘The Chanel “Ford” – the frock that all the world will wear.’ How right they were!

In 1960, less than 40 years later, E. Merriam, a writer on the fashion industry said: ‘Functional: a simple black dress that costs more than $100. Understated: A simple black dress that costs more than $200. Nothing: A black dress that costs more than $300, as in “a little Nettie Rosenstein nothing.”’

I’ve never heard of Nettie Rosenstein (1890–1980). She was in fact renowned for her little black dresses, running the gamut from day dress to evening, and also for costume jewellery. She was born in Austria, and her family migrated to America in the 1890s. Her fashion label was based in New York City between c.1913–1975, beginning with a home dressmaking business. In 1919, she was approached by the I. Magnin department store, and she began wholesaling; two years later she opened her own establishment. [Wikipedia]

Divine 1930s dresses by Nettie Rosenstein (original links of images broken)Unsurprisingly, I own only one LBD, this late 1950s or early 60s dress above – ‘Baker of Melbourne’ – which I bought in a vintage store many years ago. It dips into a vee at the back, and originally had a small white floral lace appliqué on the right shoulder – a tasteful one – but one day I removed it. It’s a pity I don’t know what became of it. I wear this dress very rarely.

I do have a casual black jersey dress as well, which is designed on Grecian lines that I wear on hot days as it is loose and comfortable, and also a Large Black Dress of black silk satin, with a lace insert on the bodice. I call it my ‘summer Gothic’ dress, as while the top is comfortably light for hot weather, the floor-length skirt is divided into three tiers that billow out dramatically.

‘The little black dress always looks better in white.’ — Bill Blass

I am a proponent of the Little White Dress however, and own many. I wholeheartedly agree with Bill Blass, the New York fashion designer who quipped in 2002, ‘The little black dress always looks better in white.’

Below are some tearsheets that are admittedly quite old (May 2001), but they show some seminal moments in the history of the LBD. (Doris Day’s 1959 dress is cut on similar lines to my own.) Click the images for larger versions.

Fashion quotations from: A to Z of Style, Amy de la Haye, V & A Publishing 2011.

Photo: April 2016

From Australian In Style magazine, May 2001From Australian In Style magazine, May 2001

The Perfect Harmony

While I have been waxing lyrical about not wearing all black (all the time), I do love all grey and all white. Just as great are black and white worn together – they are a classic pairing and you could never go wrong … except perhaps being mistaken for a waiter in a restaurant. That could be rather embarrassing for both parties!

Joking aside, for those who say they like to wear all black because it makes it easy to put an outfit together, it is just as easy to put black and white items together. Coco Chanel was a great champion of this combination. She said: “Women think of all colors except the absence of color. I have said that black has it all. White too. Their beauty is absolute. It is the perfect harmony.”

Chanel’s successor, Karl Lagerfeld has said: “Black-and-white always looks modern, whatever that word means.” Timeless, Karl; it looks timeless, so it always looks contemporary. Neither shade is synonymous with any particular decade; they are always in fashion.

 “I have said that black has it all. White too. Their beauty is absolute. It is the perfect harmony.” – Coco Chanel

If pure white does not suit your complexion, try a softer shade of ivory, vanilla, cream or eggshell. Nor does black suit everyone (contrary to popular opinion). According to colour theory, black is not the best shade for light and warm springs, or summers of any description. Click here for more information on finding your perfect colours.  

And if you are not accustomed to wearing colour, then a gentle way to introduce some is by adding a single coloured accessory to your black and white garments, without fear of looking clownish, or the angst of trying to match different colours when you are unpractised.

Fashion Notes

This modern silk blouse, by Decjuba, and Banana Republic skirt are really quite detailed enough on their own – I wouldn’t add more than a pair of shoes and a bag to wear them on the town. But just for today, I have gone all-out fun with adding vintage accessories into the mix.

From the top: an Edwardian velvet and sequin toy top hat that I purchased from a UK-based eBay seller; vintage 60s polka dot net gloves bought from an American Etsy store; a vintage 1940s black bag with soutache embroidery that I pounced on in a Sacred Heart Opportunity Shop; and a pair of modern Italian-made woven leather heels by Stefano Stefani, which also came from a thrift store, this time the Salvos.

Next time you go to assemble an all-black outfit, why not throw caution to the wind and throw in a bit of white? In the immortal words – echoing Coco Chanel – of the song, ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony.

Photos: February 2016

A Fistful of Turquoise

One of my favourite colours is a turquoise, a description that encompasses sky-blue, cyan, robin’s egg blue, Tiffany blue and cerulean. Turquoise was first introduced to Europe from Turkey in the 17th century, and that is how it earned its name. The blue tones come from copper, and the green from iron, and shades run the gamut from sky-blue to green – just as that list above illustrates.

The stone itself has been prized for thousands of years for its unique colour, and is associated particularly with the ancient Egyptians and Aztecs. It was in fact one of the first gemstones to be mined: beads dating from about 5000 BC have been found in Mesopotamia (Iraq). These days the colour is mostly associated with Tiffany & Co (although somewhat ironically they mostly deal in diamonds).

I have a small collection of turquoise rings that I have amassed over the years. All of them bear varying amounts of limonite veining, but they are all slightly different shades. The first was gifted me by a friend; the second is a ring I made myself a decade ago; the third is a recent op shop find; and the last I bought in Barcelona many years ago. My turquoise hat is a vintage 1960s wool fedora.

Perhaps I love the hue because it reminds me of the serenity of a clear blue sky (some American Indians associated blue turquoise with ‘Father Sky’). However, I don’t wear swathes of the colour often, using it more as an accent in accessories, particularly jewellery.

Turqouise has through millennia been for different cultures a holy stone, talisman, or bringer of good luck – while I have had bad luck to lose the stone from one ring while wearing it. Good luck chased me down years later, however, and lead me to an almost-exact replica in a thrift store.

Photos: August 2016

Sporting the Colours

Today is one of Australia’s big sporting days, with the grand finale of the Australian Football League season played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a sporting venue that is very close to where I live. Thus, even when I don’t attend a game, I can experience the roar of the crowd, albeit at a distance.

I’m a nominal football fan these days, and my team (Essendon) wasn’t playing, so who to nominally support? It was the Western Bulldogs v the Sydney Swans. The choice should be easy after all: a Victorian team (the state in which I live) versus a New South Welsh team. But that would be too obvious. Then there were their mascots: bulldogs and swans; I definitely prefer swans – they are such amusing birds, and I see them every day in the botanic gardens across the road.

there was something of even greater – and more fashionable – interest to me: THE COLOURS.

But there was something of even greater – and more fashionable – interest to me: THE COLOURS. I decided my allegiance would attach to my favourite colour combination. The Doggies, with blue and white and red, and the Swans with simple red and white. Both classic colour combinations; both incorporating stripes of some sort (on jerseys or socks); and both having nautical connections. This would be tricky! Because I adore both, as evidenced already on these pages (click those links above).

In the end, although I didn’t attend the game, and only watched the final quarter on TV, I gallivanted around town in a subtle variant of the Bulldogs’ colours. And in the end, it was the right choice, because the Doggies won the flag after an exciting last quarter, ending a 62-year drought. It’s always nice to be on the winning side if one possibly can.

Fashion Notes

I’m wearing a mix of new and vintage, notably a 1940s red velvet hat, and a 1970s ribbed cardigan.

Photo: Yesterday