Cloud Dancer — such a love-washed, yearn-laden phrase to define the colour of the year, and definitely set to be energising when the sunstung tango will be at its white-hot worst.
Think cotton, organdy, mul, khadi, linen, seersucker, natural crepe, georgette, chiffon, chanderi, kota doria, voile, viscose, natural light silks such as the banarsi, eri, and paat in simple embroidery, chikanwork with mukaish, badla, any woven weave, colour blocked, white on white or all shades of alabaster.
The chalky radiance is a waltz any time of the year for any occasion. Rock a party or a corporate dash to a conference room, a white sari, shirt, dress — pick what you want to radiate honest chic, exude a clear mind. Pair with bright earthy vivids, could be the blouse, stole or clean blue jeans. Accessorise to add to the look. Choose your colour. Stick to pearls and studs for day-long buzz around work, switch to loud and chunky for a sundowner, a fam jam or just hanging around with pals.
Play mind games if it’s a power-house meeting with the stakes stacked high. Team with dominant reds if you want to lead the room or a soothing blue if ruffled feathers need some calming. Colour and the manner in which it is styled on a person, speaks volumes of a personality type. And as the journalist-philosopher G K Chesterton had once said: “White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. God paints in many colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white." True that!
When it comes to societal mores, this hue is considered auspicious in some parts of the country, even as weddingwear for the bride, in many others shunned along with black – not even the drawstring can be white! Thus, colour or the lack of it works both as emotion and as part of ritual in the collective psyche of the people.
The emerging social temper today is increasingly becoming colour agnostic, and rightly so. But what is also happening is that the wild chromatic note is being leached from the common imagination.
For instance, a couple of young ladies, almost set for a plush summer wedding, have gone for all pastels, and this includes the respective mothers, bridesmaids, cousins et al who make the Indian wedding big and fat! Pastels sure can be ethereal, but why are we keen much to shun our own prismatic sparkle!?
The cloud dancer wafts, but why shush the flaming reds, pinks, yellows, oranges, ochre and umber?
What do you think? I would love to hear from you.
