I’m not embarrassed to admit that color theory confuses me even as an art major. I wish I understood what truly makes colors work together. I know that blues and oranges work just as well as greens and red…but why? The different groups are familiar to me: analogous, complementary, and of course monochromatic, but past that I get lost once again. It’s not like I’ll wear red with green anywhere, so why does this even come to mind?
Let me drop a bit of an art lesson here. The truth of this situation comes from the color wheel. It begins there and believe it or not is the answer to it all. The reason behind the color wheel being able to do all of this is due to the ability to put the colors in order by wavelength. The colors that came to be primaries are a part of Sir Isaac Newton’s prism experiments that lead to the theory which discovered that colors came from the derivations of red, yellow, and blue. This discovery by Newton explains exactly why color comes from the diversion of light and the reflection we experience leading to different tones. On the visible light spectrum, red is seen at the beginning with the longest wavelength and least energy, whereas violet has the shortest wavelength and most energy, being on the end of the spectrum. The rest of the rainbow is found in between.
So that’s the science behind it, but the juicy good bit is when designers and those in need express a certain vibe or feeling behind something. This is when the use of color groups comes to play. Color schemes also come from this thought process. So as people go to choose colors that look best together they might go to the harmonic schemes which expose a lot of different combinations. Tetradic is one that I didn’t know existed but seems the most interesting of them all. It’s the colors that connect when there’s a rectangle in the middle of the circle leaving only one color in between the points of intersection which give the person using this method four colors that work well together. Monochromatic and complementary colors are more familiar as these are used in day-to-day experiences, but as anyone can infer these can be used to aid a specific emotion or atmosphere in art and other things like fashion or to simply decorate a room.
While on the hunt for the theory behind it all, this shower thought actually first began when I thought about why red hair matched fall so well– which then led me to brainstorm what colors came to mind when I thought of fall. As my roommate went on about wanting to dye her hair red since being here, I was also wondering if I should go ginger (as I quite literally do at least a hundred thousand times every year) and then I realized just how many people have gone red.
There’s the plummy reds, wine reds, and then the pop rock red look. Red has become a fall color more than ever and this is not only because of Gigi Hadid last year, but a few “it-girls,” actresses, and influencers of this generation hopped on the trend. As I dug deeper, I found more that reminded me of how universal the redhead movement was. I’m questioning if this can even be called a redhead season, or if it’s a color that works for all. I even stalked my own Instagram and found a photo of two of my friends and me all having different shades of red hair last year. We dyed our hair three separate times, but by the winter we all matched. Contrary to the Kool-Aid blue tips trend in 2017, I fully support anyone who wishes to go red.
This is similar to the brown pandemic or the outbreak of monochromatic looks—also called “goblin-core” by a friend, mind you this is no complaint, just an analysis that it’s widespread throughout a lot of this year’s fashion). I am guilty of only wearing a specific range of blues in middle school and early high school and I believe the choice of cool tones changed to warm in the last two years. This makes sense due to the early universal red dye experience that took over my senior year made monochromatic, neutral, and warm-toned outfits more desirable. The connection and reasoning between things, in general, is exciting, but with color, it’s a whole different realm of excitement. As someone who enjoys connections and finding the reasoning behind things, this shower thought led me to a search that was satisfying in more ways than one. I hope this article also leads you to notice redheads even more than you did before.
Be First to Comment