You’re blushing! Welcome back to a world in colour
Spring has turned the taps back on and joy is flowing.
In Lockdown 1.5 (the one where kids were still at school and no one wanted to go outside anyway because it was freezing) I took to wearing monochrome. Black or white, or black and white, Breton or zebra stripes, I lusted after a Dalmation-print hat and invested in organic cotton ‘lounge pants’. One leg was black; the other, white. Off I’d trot to wait in fashionable bakery lines like a walking Oreo. I’d see glossy magpies bowing off telephone wires and think: “we understand one another.”
Call it sartorial fallacy. Perhaps the pandemic managed to turn the taps off on colour as well as taste and smell. But where the world had once been a vivid and dancing place of pattern and intrigue, now it was a muted, if not fashionable, flatness.
That is, except for the Orange Coat. The bolt of brightness arrived on my doorstep in a small cardboard box only to spring out like a jack-in-the-box, the duvet-puffa-y-ness jumping into jacket form. Cocooned within I was an Arsene Wenger of light, a Highbury mountain ranger. Then came the Blue Bike, the Red Desk, the Yellow Diary and the Green Helmet. Little by little my matchy-matchy black forest gateau aesthetic gave way to a saturated mess.
By March, as crocuses poked through the daily walk-stomped earth, I began to see my surroundings in glorious technicolour again. More than switching on the lights, it was as if my own personal decorator was going about painting landscapes in my exact colour scheme. I’d see a car with a navy bonnet, red door and green roof. A house with multi-toned windowpanes. Even the Mildmay Library with its Early Learning palette was coloured in for my benefit. I almost flipped when I saw a moorhen. “It’s just so CHIC,” I squealed trying to take a selfie with one in Regent’s Park.
These are some of the artists and creators from across the spectrum who have been dialling up the dream-coat inspiration.
I drool over the blocks of pick ‘n’ mix tiles like a greasy old rainbow perv
L.F. Markey
Each time I pass L.F. Markey’s Dalston store I peer in through the windows and drool over the blocks of pick ‘n’ mix tiles like a greasy old rainbow perv. I lose sleep over tomato-red boiler suits and lime-green floaty trousers, awoken by visions of the iconic yellow sun logo embossed on shoe bags and hat boxes. This brand is a visual representation of my mind in its psychedelic dream state.
Lido Pimienta
The Colombian-Canadian queen of colour (crikey!) Lido Pimienta, performs in an orange studio, wearing a dress that looks as if it was used for paintball practice. The way she summons everything from her toes to her hair to bellow this song fills me with courage. The video below reminds me of my first wedding.
Facility Studio
Another Dalston establishment, Facility Studio makes affordable bespoke frames that Joseph would be jealous of. The seven-week waiting list attests to this young company’s popularity but picking out shades over a WhatsApp consultation is made extremely fun by their assistant’s ‘more is more’ attitude. Stay tuned for my red, blue, purple and orange frame, set to be delivered in five weeks and counting!
a house that exists ostensibly as a public service to boost morale
Projekt 26
What could such a bonkers frame be for? An artwork with A LOT of colour to work with. And my Polish print from Projekt 26 is not lacking in that department. Or any other. Projekt 26 specialises in the Polish School of Posters, the delightful and subversive movement that allowed movie adverts to slip past Soviet censors. Designs are witty, graphic and rife with delicious colour.
The Colour House
Down in the dumps? Take a stroll down Sandringham Road. You’ll pass some magnolia and some cherry blossom. Big deal. That isn’t what we came for. Sooner or later, you’ll come to artist Lennie Lee’s Dalston home, a house that exists ostensibly as a public service to boost morale. Revel in it. Give it a grin. And check out Lennie’s work, it’s just as bright and magical as you’d imagine.
Joachim Lambrechts
The smells and sounds of backstreet music bars dance before you in the works of Antwerp-based Joachim Lambrechts. His street art aesthetic and primary palette take me back to Mexico City where Frida Kahlo’s Blue House is the standard and coloured bunting flutters across every neon-lit plaza.
www.artsy.net/artist/joachim-lambrechts
Moorhens
I wasn’t joking when I said that moorhens are some chic-ass birds. That black, white, yellow and red scheme just POPS. A great place to admire these fabulous fowl is along the New River Path in Canonbury, which happily is just metres away from champion boozer the Myddleton Arms. If you need me in April I’ll be standing by the river, takeaway pint in hand, shouting at the ducks to give my stylish friends some space.