Colour me unconcerned

During the 1980s a whole rash of businesses arose, based on assisting members of the populace to find their ‘true colours’. I believe it worked something like this. You went to an office where a consultant with undisclosed qualifications looked at you underneath different lights, asked a number of questions about your likes and dislikes and then, after due consideration, drew forth a palette of colours that she (usually) decided were for you.
Only in these colours, went the claim, would you look and feel your brightest and best to the point where those who got their colour scheme ‘wrong’ were likely to crash cars and fail exams. Most curious of all were those consultants who grouped their clients into one of the four seasons. The town was alive with springs talking to summers, and autumns arguing with winters. Now, it’s all rather passé.
In these days of throwaway clothes, there is much less angst expended over the tint of a shirt than when we (gasp!) saved up and bought a garment that might hang in our wardrobes for (double gasp!) years. I never bought into this colour thing simply because I couldn’t bear the thought of a total stranger telling me – who has very definite colour likes and dislikes – that my choice of clothing was all wrong.
Instead, I contented myself with filling in those pop psychology quizzes in magazines, indicating favoured colours in various circumstances, then reading the analyses afterwards.
I have long forgotten what sort of animal I am supposed to be, but the colours of that decade still resonate: midnight blue, fuchsia pink, pillar-box red, canary yellow and black, black, black – and I have never moved on from wearing combos of these glorious shades. Fashion aside, there are definite psychological responses to colour in certain situations, and often with beneficial results – but that is another column.