Ring in Spring, Bring the Color

If anyone knows me, they know I own a pair of robin's egg blue canvas pants, a pair of neon green corduroy pants, a pink/purple sweater, and a dirty orange blazer. I don't shy away from color. A varied palette of colors was something I learned from the Italians. It may be the fact that it's springtime, or perhaps the general populace has been brainwashed by J. Crew, but I've noticed that strong colors are definitely hitting hard this season.

My roommate Shivani works her colors marvelously, maybe it has to do with the Indian roots, maybe it has to do with the sexy artistic person she is, but her wardrobe (when not pajamas :P) often pack a punch. Three simple items that literally pop into mind are her bright red and bright yellow coats along with her boppin' blue leggings. Adding these things to an outfit, she pops from a crowd with confidence, color and oomph. Girls can easily pull of loud colors because they have more variety to work with, but can boys?


The other day I was catching up on my guilty-pleasure TV show, Gossip Girl and noticed that a similar vibrancy of color had crept into the wardrobe of Chuck Bass. In the intro paragraph of the show, Chuck sports a bright orange trenchcoat. Bright orange, like highlighter orange, just bordering on traffic cone orange. But somehow he pulls it off.


While the upscale girls also pull off bright yellow, pink and green coats and colorful headbands, for some reason the daring palette and the male sex don't seem to associate normally in North America. But why not? Birds do it. Cardinals, for example, give the males bright red coats while the females are boring and grey. Peacocks too endow the men with scintillating pompous-worthy feathers and leave the women with nothing much to strut around. While I don't want to argue for men primping more than the ladies, I think men should be entitled to a little fashion power.


Chuck not only sported the orange trenchcoat, later in the episode he wore a bright red riding-inspired coat (with black trim on the collar) and to top it all off, with simply a glimpse at the episode's conclusion, he mix-matched a pink/purple shirt with green collar, a purple cardigan and oh so big-bird yellow pants. Totally wild? Sure. It definitely is saturation to the extreme. But, I dunno, I kinda like it. What do I say? Kudos to the stylist on the set of Gossip Girl. Bring on the color, men, be bold, be ballsy, go nuts. I know I intend to.