Comfort in Color: How color impacts our emotions and fashion
Graphic by Agnes Lee.
When I decided to dye my hair bright pink during my second year at Northwestern, I found that having control over your appearance and realizing what it means to exercise that agency are two different things. Being in college meant I got a steady paycheck and easier access to styles I wanted to try. While I had the power to experiment with my looks, I didn’t push those boundaries. The agency was there, but my perspective on what I could do was minimized. I had to let go of the standards I was brought up with, which made room for the ways I could have fun with my aesthetic.
After years of professional chestnut ombré jobs or strawberry-blonde highlights —and even that one regrettable dip-dye Kool-Aid look I did on myself — I wanted an extreme change. My decision wasn’t dictated by my emotions. When people asked why I did it, I would shrug and just say I wanted to. Wasn’t that enough?
I soon found myself embracing everything pink. I wrote in magenta ink in rose-colored notebooks. My shimmery blush-tinted eyeshadow matched my lipgloss as I integrated the color into my wardrobe, technology and general embodiment. My pink phase often brought concerns from family members about upcoming interviews and potentially-impacted job opportunities. But I believe that associating color with professionalism bars us off from much-needed joy and confidence. During my pink phase, one of my friends said, “If Valentine’s Day were a person, they’d look like Gia,” and I was elated. Not only did I feel comfortable in pink, I felt confident. I poured pink over my life and had all the fun I didn’t have when I was growing up in the ruinous ‘not like other girls’ era.
But as the pandemic hit and the dye began to fade, so did my excitement for dressing up. By the time my hair reached an unsightly bleach-yellow, I was uninspired and deeply uncomfortable. So I dyed my hair blue.
Although it only covered the bottom half of my hair, I welcomed this blazing blue into my life just as I had with pink. Then I did so with lilac, and now I claim green in my everyday life (only, without the dye, as my strands are in recovery).
Throughout my hair journey, I’ve found that regardless of my mood, the color I display connects me to a certain identity. Not only does it give me control over how I’m perceived, but it’s a symbol of the freedom of being unbothered by others’ expectations
I'm not alone in embracing the comfort of colors. Consider Elizabeth Sweetheart, better known as the Green Lady of Brooklyn on Instagram. For 25 years, Sweetheart has embraced the color green in every form with the clothes on her body, the furniture in her house and even the items in her bathroom cabinet. Although her comfort color was developed from natural accumulation, Sweetheart went through many colors until she decided on sticking with green“I’m always doing things to keep happy, and green is just the most positive color, and the happiest,” said Sweetheart in a New York Times article.
The natural attraction to a color can happen whether you realize it or not. While I correlate pink with chaotic fun, synesthesia may cause others to subconsciously associate it with a loved one’s scent or voice. This neurological condition blends together senses, for example, seeing colors when listening to music. About one in 2,000 people have synesthesia, with the most common manifestation being colored hearing, according to the American Psychological Foundation. Experiences with synesthesia vary from person to person.
The association between senses and color can cause inspiration in fashion, art and literature. From photographer Rebecca Storm’s project, Synaesthesia: Fashion on the Edge of Our Senses, to Tate Britain’s immersive exhibit, “The Sensorium” and author Wendy Mass’ A Mango Shaped Space, artists have attempted to share the experience of synesthesia with others through their work. While your outfit choice doesn’t need to convey a deep message in its everyday form, clothes can be an expression of how you experience life with intertwined senses — a red shirt could be the chorus of your favorite song.
The comfort in a color may be found in other ways too. For those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there are a number of colors known to produce a calming effect. With pale pink being the leading color in popularity among those with ASD, other colors with white and gray undertones (like cool blues or greens) also simulate a gentle atmosphere. Brightness and intensity, like in the color yellow, can tire out the eyes and negatively affect emotions. Color therapy, or chromotherapy, uses color to help physical and mental health, including those with ASD.A popular example of this is white light therapy, which treats seasonal affective disorder.
Whether you subconsciously accumulate clothes and items in your favorite color, find calm in the presence of a low-intensity pastel pink sweater or want to be reminded of a song that makes you see gold, the comfort we find in color undeniably impacts us. For the past two years, my personhood has associated itself with specific colors chosen without a second thought. Today, I threw on a green sweater and typed this on my green couch, embracing the agency I’ve learned to give myself through these colors and the emotions they evoke from me.