"White ... is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black.... God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white."
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
The colour white is engendered with all sorts of connotations – purity, virginal, old and young (the eternal paradox) – and yet all I can think of when I see white is cleanliness. There is something about the colour white that just screams ‘clean’, sleek and chic of course, these things are tied into that sartorial idea of clean. That is, well groomed (but not overtly so), well dressed and well shod without proclaiming it from the rooftops in clothes that have been cared for and looked after. There is nothing so disheartening as seeing clothes that are creased, stained and otherwise uncared for. My favourite thing to see is when a hip scenester in ripped tights and messy hair has polished shoes and a jacket that has been tailored – it tells me that even though she’s trying to send out the message ‘fuck the world’ she still cares about her appearance, even if it’s artfully dishevelled.
When a woman wears several white pieces all at once it signifies a certain level of grooming and style, for to wear white all at once you must be supremely confident in yourself and in your lifestyle – imagine the dry cleaning bill if you were to get it dirty in any way. White and me are not the best of friends, whenever I wear white I always, always seem to spill something on it, from hot chocolate to pen ink to tomato sauce, and then spend all night scrubbing at it to get the stain out. But I am intrigued by the powers of white in conjuring up at once an ice queen and a cool hipster, lounging in some bar in the middle of summer drinking mojitos. You must know that you are amazing, classy, graceful, elegant, so elegant in fact that nothing could rain on your parade (or your dress). White is always the mark of a woman who is number 1.
One of the women i had the pleasure of riding the lift with yesterday on my first day on the job at acp magazines was dressed head to toe in white, despite the fact that it was wet and windy outside and everyone else was rugged up in as much self-preserving black as they could find (myself included, with the exception of my suede jacket, a poor sartorial choice in retrospect, but oh so pretty nonetheless). She got in, cool as a cucumber (LOVE that expression), wearing a white boatneck top, white balmain-inspired blazer with those sharp shoulders, white cropped pants and a pair of blood red crimson stilettos.
See, that's the other thing about white, when you play it off with just a hint of another colour it explodes with energy. It seems to be so stagnant, so boring, so, well, nothing, but in reality white has a whole host of meanings that almost every other colour (excepting black, of course) doesn't have. It's that whole thing about the spectrum, both ends are bogged down in symbolism and importance whilst the middle bits are allowed to roam free in all their bright and exuberant coloured-ness.
So, what are you waiting for? i'm off to dig up the white pieces in my wardrobe - a simple bassike cotton tee, a long floor length grecian goddess maxi skirt, a gauzy overshirt, and a pair of ruby red flats. Sounding a bit like summer to you? Well, maybe i'm a bit sick of rain.
And you all know what it does to white.
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