What do you think when you see this color combination?






Awww, it is the color combo for a little old lady and a pack of six enormous joss sticks, and don't forget a red plastic bag. It is an analogous color combination and very harmony right?

We can tell from the joss sticks that she is a traditional old lady, she wears a red vest is probably for good luck and celebration; and the black long sleeve T-shirt and pants can stand stains and looks tidy even it gets dirty.

Almodova: Boldness in Colour

I love Spain although I've never been there.
It is the movie director Pedro Almodovar introduced me to Spain .
In his movie he gives me the impression that Spain/Barcelona is the country of color (besides a lot of gorgeous and melancholy drag queens, gay guys and women; the innocent young Antonio Banderas and my favourite actress Penelope Cruz...). Each time when I watch his movie at home or in the cinema, it is a challenge to my home's TV set, to the cinema's projector and my visual receptors. I am so excited by his use of color that I promise myself if I save enough money for a trip to Europe, I must first go to Spain. I also attended the Spanish complementary course last year all because of Almodovar's film. However, I still can not pronounce the alphabet 'rr' and I have already given the 'un poco' Spanish that I learnt back to the teacher. Sigh!

Here I listed out sixteen posters of Almodovar's film (I have only watched ten of them):

It shows that primary and secondary colours in high chroma or at least in constant chroma; in medium value without tints, shades and tones. Monochromatic, achromatic and analogic schemes do not exist in his dictionary. Fatiguing to the eye, but exciting to watch.

Actually, not many hues are used in the posters, it is about the high intensity of the colors that give the passionate feeling in Almodovar's films. This is the most fascinating element to me and always makes me feel that Spain is as colorful as in the director's eye.



And definitely, a lot of people love Almodovar's color palette, I found this simple and representative palelette on the internet.

A scene in Volver, the red blouse in contrast with the blue-green wall, it exhibits brilliance; and protrudes the main actress. The color in the scene is also arranged in certain sequence. Turquoise and beige are scattered around red i.e. each color appears in a certain order to succession, keeps the same position in each repeat, and leads the eye in the direction of progression.

Sometimes we may use color to tell a story, without clumsy explanations or descriptions, color could have it all. Of course, every bits of color must be used precisely, and the most important thing is that we must let go and can not play safe.

Yellow

I like the yellow luggage.

It belongs to the western lady on the left, by looking at her trousers, every can tell that she really like yellow.

What are the meanings that yellow conveys in this picture? Maybe it means joy, happiness, optimism, idealism, imagination, hope, sunshine, summer, gold, philosophy blah, blah, blah... to the lady; but definitely means caution when yellow appears at the door edge.

However, when I was a child, people keep telling me that yellow looks dump, you look like a banana, if you wear yellow; so I thought I didn't like yellow too. But actually I do like yellow and I am not afraid to admit this now. Why bother about what other people think? To me yellow means happiness and looks smart!

Collection-- Class excercise 4

Opps! Don't misunderstand. I am not suffering from OCD. I just filled 30 sets of collections and picked one with the best color combination among each set, here is my best 30.




The six colours that I choose are in advancing or receding qualities of hues, values and intensities convey similar moods, agreement of feeling is easier when giving enough variety for interest but avoiding boredom or conflict, i.e. harmony of colour.

I found yellow does not goes well with brown and an outfit looks weird with large proportion of brown; and my favorite combination is purple, blue and brown.

Conclusion

After analyzing the color scheme of all seasons of Marc by Marc Jacobs collections form Spring 2001 to Fall 2009, we find out some color theories and principles that Marc Jacobs might apply on the brand.

1. Achromatic Color/ Neutral Colors


Achromatic are black grey and white; and Neutrals are one of the easiest groups of colours, or non-colours to work with. They don't appear on the colour wheel and include Black, Grey, White and sometimes Brown and Beige. They all go together and can be layered and mixed and matched. No neutral colour will try to dominate over another.

2. Primary Color



3. Analogous Color in Red + Violet + Blue
These three colors together with black and white always appear in Marc by Marc collections, though the value, intensity and saturation are varied.


4. Split Complimentary Color in Red + Violet + Blue Yellow



5. Balance of Color

6. Harmony of Color --
Convenient for futher development in collections


7. Flicker -- Red and Blue





The red and blue combination often appears in Marc by Mar Jacobs collections.
Red and blue are colors that flicker when seen together. If both colours have the same value and saturation, they seem to flash when seen together. Flicker is an attention-getting color device that is often used in advertising, packaging, or signage, but it is very irritating and unsuitable in textile, fashion, or interior design unless a particularly irritating effect is desired.

8. Widely use of Accent Color


An accent color is a color used in quite small quantities to lift or to add punch to a colour scheme.
An accent colour should be in a complementary colour. It works best if it's a bright, vibrant colour. Marc by Marc Jacobs is a more commercial brand, and its customers might scare of strong color outfits, and accent colours are perfect for them -- simply add a splash of an accent colour on the zipper, trimmings or on the accessories.


We also discovered some interesting rules of using colors in Marc by Marc Jacobs:

1. A color scheme usually comes back and is reused in Marc by Marc Jacobs every four to five years. That is the spring 2007 color scheme is very similar to that of Spring 2002; and spring 2008 is similar to Spring 2003.

Spring 2007 Spring 2002


2. Each Season you with find a hint of what colors are coming next. There are about fifty to sixty outfits presented in each fashion show, and usually after thirty outfits, there is a significant change in hue, tone, saturation etc. of the outfits compare to the former thirty. Then, in the next season you might find the continuous usage of color scheme at the beginning of the fashion show.

Spring 2002 Fall 2006


So, we cannot find out what’s in Marc Jacobs’ mind, but we might predict the color scheme of the next Marc by Marc Jacobs’ collection, with some seemingly reliable evidence from the past seasons:

Step 1: Achromatic is a must.
Step 2: Red and blue too!
Step 3: Trace back the color scheme at four years ago( Remember the cycle of color scheme, huh? ).
Step 4: Check out the lower part of last season’s fashion show to seek implication of the coming collection’s color scheme.
Step 5: Organize the results from the above steps and fit into a color theory in design application, add a few accent colors as you like.

Eureka! Now, just wait and see if the steps really works.

Color Theory on Cats

Fat cat in monochromatic fur, lies on a carton box of apple, looks vacuous, except his belly.

Monochromatic color scheme gives a subtle look, but since it look smart and beautiful, people are willing to give it food and the most evil thing is there are a lot of delis around in the market.

It makes me realize that there seems no fat black cat, why? Is that black cat is not cute enough? Is that they look inauspicious? Is that black cats are genetically weight less?

Color theories on Fashion Store

The shelves and closets are between burgundy and brown which give vigor, elegance, richness, refinement, maturity and expensive feeling. Black is used as the background and color for floor to match with the dark color shelves. It is also because I use the contrast of color theory to emphasize the colorful products; bright and dull intensities accents unlikeness.

I use analogic and complementary color scheme (green, red, red-violet and orange) together with principle of novelty on the products to draw the attention of customers.

Pantone Colors for 06'

Pantone Colors for Fall 2006 Ready-to-Wear
including accessories and background colour.


The back groung colour is in pale blue-grey. It is the manipultion of emphasis of colour. Since the whole collection is in advancer qualities of hue, value and intensity and stands out in the background that is in receding qualities .








Pantone Colors for Spring 2006 Ready-to-Wear
including accessories and background colour.

The back groung colour is in white. It is the manipultion of contrast of colour which refers to advancing and receding hues counter each other, light and dark values show powerful opposition, and bright and dull intensities accent the unlikeliness.

Marc by Marc Jacobs 2009 Spring Ready-to-Wear

2009 S/S

• use tertiary color
• This collection can be divided into 2 parts. Part 1 uses low value, low intensity and low hue color.
• While part 2 uses warm color with high hue, high value and high intensity.
• The special arrangement of this fashion show gives a psychophysical effect of youth action and energetic.
• You can always found analogous colors scheme in most of the outfits.
• And some for the complementary colors scheme as well.

Marc by Marc Jacobs 2008 Ready-to-Wear

2008 F/W

• the main color used is black.
• Most of the colors used were dark and dull color with a few bright colors to add highlight effect on the collection.
• Complementary colors scheme (e.g.: Black with green, Black with yellow) can always be found. But most of them were with analogous color scheme.
• The colors used were with tertiary colors, with low hue, low intensity and low value.

2008 S/S

• Dark blue, grey and yellow are the domain color in this collection (Dark blue: 23 times, Grey: 11 times, Yellow: 7 times)
• Complementary color scheme always happened in individual outfits.
• Adjacent complementary happened too.
• Most of the colors used were with high chroma, high hue and high intensity.

Marc by Marc Jacobs 2007 Ready-to-Wear

2007 F/W

• there were brown and blue and neutral colors as its main colors for analogous matching
• adjacent colors were red, green, orange and violet used in accessories.
• The clothes mostly were in dark colors of tertiary colors in high chroma and low value.

2007 S/S

• mainly used analogous colors in dark red, green, brown, blue, and violet.
• some monochromatic or achromatic colors decorated by some accessories in complementary colors.
• in light tertiary colors but in high value and low chroma.
• familiarity color tone in its collection.

Marc by Marc Jacobs 2006 Ready-to-Wear

2006 F/W

• The whole collection is almost all navy and black, with a glimpse of red and occasionally white.
• used tints and shades of blue (monochromatic) and achromatic colors to create a subtle color scheme . Such combination is safe to use and could be quite boring.
• made use of the contrast of color principle to create point of interests in the collection; he put flashes of red and the whole collection became more vivid.
• Black and navy is suggested in the spring summer collection, at the later half of the runaway show.

2006 S/S

• The collection is mostly in pastel colors (tints) and with shots of black and navy
• a little bit of yellow and magenta at the print patterns, belt or waistband.
• This is an example of harmony of color with contrast of color to break the rule.

Snap shot

Hong Kong people, where are the colors?
Many of us love to dress in achromatic scheme, especially black: to look cool, to look authority, to look slim, to keep a distance from the crowd, but don't they realize that all black is equal to boredom? Both pictures are taken on the MTR platforms, left one at Tseung Kwan O, right one at Lai King. Although their social background, occupation, income level, age etc. vary, they all wear achromatic clothes. Such an interesting phenomenon! Would it be the side effect of the recent economic crises? Would it be they are not happy about their job? So, they choose black due to unhappiness and living pressure?

A Filipino lady wore a colorful printed blouse. High saturation, high chrome primary colors. It is in their culture to wear colorful floral prints, but actually nowadays we seldom see the Filipinos wear colorful clothing, may be just like Chinese seldom wear Qipao in daily life.

Photo taken at the Kowloon Park, in front of the big bird cage: a family with two elderly, a Westerner male and a Chinese Female. Their choice of color is quite simple: pink, green and achromatic, not obscure at all. So, I guest they might come from working class family, or at least, not highly educated.

Another family in front of the bird cage baby, granny, and mom and Filipino maid. Again, their choice of colors: red, blue, achromatic are simple colors, reflects that they are not come the highly educated class.


Pink and light blue are for toddlers. Since the two colors conveys the meaning of love, romance, softness, delicacy; peace, tranquility, quiet, clean, soft and pure etc. which are the stereotypes and hopes of adult to children.
The teachers are in orange polo shirt which represent ambition, fun, happy, energetic, balance, warmth, enthusiasm, generosity, vibrant ... i.e. the essential qualities of kinder garden teachers.
Well. Don't you think that the colors of the uniforms are too cutesy?

Grey symbolically represents security, reliability, intelligence, staid, modesty, dignity, maturity, solid, conservative, practical, old age, sadness, boring. Here I would use staid, conservative, practical, old age and boring to describe the man. Apologize if I am wrong, but because his look misled me.

Form the colorful young lovers we can find the age difference between adults and youngsters. In the above pictures you can see adults usually prefers subdues colors, while youngsters prefer brighter and solid colors.

On the left and right are Westerners, the one in the middle is a Hong Kong guy. It shows that color preference could be more of personal preference rather than age, cultural or gender influence.