Saturday, June 30, 2007

Color “Choices”

For years I've told people about the Color Marketing Group and how they create self-fulfilling prophecies of what colors will be popular in two years time. Their color choices basically dictate which colors will be available to the general public in mass marketed clothing each season. This process certainly benefits the fabric dye manufacturers, who can make tons of a relatively small palette of colors rather than small batches of any and all colors that clothing manufacturers could dream up.

My complaint is that most blues since the beginning of the first President Bush's administration have been lousy. Blue is my favorite color and almost every item of clothing I own is a shade of blue, so I am very familiar with the subtle variations in hues.

My favorite blues were doing the Reagan era: bright, happy, optimistic blues. I think it reflected the period when anything seemed possible, including an eventual defeat of the Evil Empire. With Reagan in charge, there was no need to worry about big issues and people could just enjoy the go-go 80's. Later, the election of Bush the First heralded the introduction of subdued blues and then many more years of peculiar blues. If I had known the Reagan blues were going to disappear I would have gotten multiples of every shirt that I bought during that time. I want my electric blue!

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