CHAPTER SIX

The Color Wheel

If a man identifies a woman with a color, every time he sees that color, the man will think of her and then will think of his feelings for her.

—MARINE BORDOS, DUVELLEROY, PARIS

WHO SAYS PARISIANS WEAR ONLY BLACK?

Here I am in Paris and all I see is yellow. Yellow! It appears to be the color for the fall season. When I ask my American expat friend Nancy, she says, “It’s like they all get a text message or something.” Nancy is married to a French doctor and has been living in Paris for over twenty years. “Aren’t you on the text message list?” I ask her, and she laughs because we are old friends and we developed a certain banter when we first met in our twenties at Estée Lauder. This was during the launch of the iconic fragrance Beautiful in the bright pink packaging.

But, back to the text message. “No,” Nancy tells me, feigning disappointment. “The Parisiennes have left me off the new color alerts!”

“C’est domage,” I say—It’s a shame—and she agrees.

We are enjoying our crazily expensive coffees around the corner from the fashionable Trocadero, because it’s near Nancy’s office and home and it does provide excellent fashion-people-watching. Nancy is still in the beauty business, while I have returned to what was always my true love: writing. And this is why I am here once again in Paris. I generally visit the City of Light twice a year, but during this particular visit, I am obsessed with color! Perhaps because it happens to be Fashion Week and I am hyperaware of the newest trends in the store windows and on the streets. Also, I think it’s because I see all this yellow. Yellow coats, yellow shoes, yellow scarves, yellow pocketbooks.

My friend Edith says this is because it’s autumn, the harvest season, and of course yellow is in vogue, as is burgundy for the wine and grape harvest. She tells me that for the French, fashion is always connected to nature, food, fragrance, and the land, but still—why so much yellow? Why now?

I am still puzzled by this when I meet with my Parisian friend Valerie. She does not wear this season’s yellow. She wears orange. Actually, no matter what the season’s “text message” happens to say, she always wears orange. It’s her signature color.

Valerie is the owner of Ma Collection Marchande de Saveurs, a charming boutique in Paris, that specializes in curated gourmet delicacies (meaning she personally selects what she will feature in her store).

If you visit her shop, you will never forget Valerie. Yes, her signature color is orange. Her little boutique bags are orange. The walls in her shop are orange—and Valerie, herself, wears orange on a daily basis, including orange eyeglasses and bright red hair. It’s not wild-looking at all. It’s actually striking and stylish and completely enchanting. This love for the color orange is the way she brands herself. And if you think about it, the French understood the power of color and branding long before it became so in vogue. Just think about Hermès orange.

Her signature color is a simple way to convey the fact that she’s fun, she’s artistic, and she’s an original—without saying a word about it.

Choose your own signature color and wear a bit of it every day.

When I ask Valerie how she came to choose this color, she smiles shyly, and then tells me with her very adorable French accent, “Orange is an energy color. Red is too much like blood.” She takes a moment to look out the window on her shop on Rue Mazarine and then turns to me. “Orange matches many things,” she says with great sincerity. “Orange is for every girl—fashion, for hair, for me—it’s very elegant. It’s good for a funny girl. Or maybe just a touch—a belt. It’s nice for older women. Even total orange. All the time! Not just for a season!”

I have never heard an American girl talk about a color with this level of passion. I do know that some of this passion comes from the fact that Valerie is French and English is her second language, and so her struggle to find the right words adds to this sense of urgency, a desire to be understood. (I just wanted to point that out to those of you who struggle with your French language skills—what you perhaps don’t realize is that your very struggle reveals a kind of passion and energy—so try to speak French! You must!)

Valerie explains that there are also lots of shades of orange. There’s brown orange. And there’s yellow orange. You can match orange with green for summer. “And it’s not true that Paris is only a city of gray!” she insists. “There is the sunset over the Seine River. Just stand on Pont Neuf at six or seven o’clock and watch the sunset. It is such a beautiful shade of orange.”

Valerie goes on to describe her first major move to orange, when she was eighteen and she changed her hair color from blond to orange. (I would actually call her a redhead or auburn.) She says emphatically that she’ll never change it back because it gives her so much energy.

“I don’t like gray/blue. It’s too relaxing. Orange gives me energy and makes me happy. Life is not so easy, so I’m not like a yoga girl. I work a lot. I see my friends and family. I’m a true Parisian.”

Valerie tells me how she grew up in Paris. Her mother is from Normandy and her father is from England. In Paris, she loves the good food and the friendships.

We talk about her shop and why it’s so popular. Valerie explains how Parisian kitchens are no longer separate spaces, like in the old days, but rather their homes will feature open kitchens where everyone gathers. “It’s less formal,” Valerie explains—and lovely for potlucks. Everyone helps in the kitchen.

When I ask her about the olive oil she sells in the shop and how the bottle has a spritz and actually looks more like expensive perfume than olive oil, she tells me that she believes in good quality and good style.

Valerie tells me that as a child, she loved candies. She would visit Madame Gentille (Madame Sweet). She actually doesn’t remember the lady’s real name, but as a child she called her this because she loved Madame Gentille’s caramels, jelly candies, and lollipops. She found the shop so enchanting, that she thought when she grew up, she would buy the shop. Well, years went by and Valerie went to the famous French fashion school the École supérieure des arts et techniques de la mode (ESMOD), and it was there she learned the fine art of lingerie design. You see, from loving candies and bonbons to an appreciation of lace and silk, ribbons and bows—that froufrou—well, it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

Valerie stops to talk to a customer who has entered her shop. The woman is here to buy truffle olive oil, and a lively conversation ensues about cooking and dinner parties and how a good truffle olive oil isn’t too strong, but has just the essence of truffle inside it. She adds that this truffle olive oil should be used during the next six months and to be careful not to expose it to light or sunshine.

When Valerie finishes the sale, she returns to our conversation and tells me that she recently traveled to China for a customer where she gave a talk on the latest color trends in Paris and matched lingerie with certain foods. I repeat what she’s just told me to make sure I’m hearing right. “You match lingerie with certain foods?”

“Of course!” she says, looking slightly impatient. “Lingerie and flavor—it is the same thing. Sensuality of lingerie is the same as sensuality of food.”

SIXTY SHADES OF GRAY

Carol Gillott and I have known each other for many years. We met in New York City, originally, because we’re both devoted Francophiles and because I just really wanted to meet the creator of one of my very favorite blogs, Parisbreakfast. Take a look. Carol’s byline is “I paint Paris dreams.” Carol is a wonderful artist who chose travel over marriage, or so she tells me, but you never know. I have a feeling there will be love in her future, because she is so charming and so talented. Before she became a full-time blogger in 2006, Carol designed shoes in Italy and fashion in Hong Kong. She created wine artwork for a leading New York City wine company and spent her holidays in Veuve Clicquot’s mansion in Verzy and various châteaux in Bordeaux.

What a life!

And then, in 2012, at age seventy-two, Carol moved to Paris full-time. She tells me it was to save on airfare. She’s funny like that. And she doesn’t look her age. She has a strawberry blond pixie cut, signature red eyeglasses, and green eyes. Oh, and she tells me she wears MAC Russian Red lipstick. (Note to self: must try out that shade.) She’s very gamine and looks to be in her early fifties, if that. Today, she lives on the historic Île Saint-Louis in her artist’s garret, a chambre de bonne (top-floor maid’s room) in an historic mansion. She looks out on a stunning view across Paris while she’s painting and illustrating letters and maps that she then sends out to her devoted subscribers around the world.

Yes, she’s the quintessential artist and knows her colors. That’s for sure.

We are having lunch on a particularly gray Parisian day at the oldest restaurant in Paris, Café Procope on Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie. We order the canard (duck) and two flutes of champagne.

I ask Carol what’s going on with color in Paris. She gives me an earful. I ask her why the basic fashion palette in Paris is either gray or black, and she tells me that it’s because of the light in Paris. She gives me a knowing smile. “They don’t call it le ville de lumière for nothing!” And then, on a more serious note, she deconstructs Paris gray for me.

“It’s the gray skies, and all that drizzle, the gray/buff neutral tones of the Haussmann buildings and the gray cobblestone streets. It has nothing to do with genetics or Marie Antoinette, and everything to do with the weather.

“Why have artists always loved Paris and flocked here? Colors are richer with overcast skies. Photographers prefer overcast gray skies because they get more reflected color that way.

Gray skies make vibrant colors sing.

“Gray skies make vibrant colors sing. It’s basic color theory. Gray acts as the perfect foil for brilliant colors. It’s why you see shots of bright blue or yellow or red storefronts in Paris.

“Brilliant colors and strong colors radiate against this serene gray backdrop. We adore Ladurée’s pale green, Veuve Clicquot’s yellow champagne label, Hermès’s orange bags, Hediard’s red, Fauchon’s hot pink.

“All chocolatiers adore orange. In fact, orange is a very hot color in Paris. It connotes class and luxe and stands out against black fashions.”

I tell Carol about Valerie and she smiles enthusiastically and adds that orange is also a signature color for Hermès and the annual Salon du Chocolat.

“Parisians seek out brilliant color, but it has to be just the right shade—because they live in a mostly gray environment. They need color to breathe, exist.”

Then Carol tells me, “As an outsider, or an extraterrestrial”—she laughs—“I can see what the French don’t see.”

We clink our champagne flutes together in a toast and pronounce, “À la votre!”

HERE COMES THE SUN

If you were in Paris this past winter, you would have found a series of large posters in the metro stations and on the streets advertising winter getaways to sunny climes. Surprisingly, the posters do not feature a beach scene in Aruba or St. Maarten, but rather a colorful photograph of the Château de Versailles, displaying hot pink furniture and luxurious hot pink drapes. The ad says:

Cet hiver, prenez des couleurs.

Cet hiver, changez d’horizon.

Prenez le soleil.

Changez d’itineraire.

To translate: This winter, think color. This winter, change your horizon. Take the sun. Change your itinerary. For me, this is a revelation. Suppose I can’t manage a vacation to an island or even a trip to sunny Florida. I can still afford to “think color.” I can go to a museum. I can still wear a hot pink scarf.

Change your mood and even your future by changing your color.

FEELING BLUE

When I travel throughout France, I can see that this attention to color is a big deal. How is it that French women seem to have a natural gift for choosing their signature color?

Denise is an artist and great champion for the color blue. I first met her in 2010 when I was in Auvillar teaching a creative writing workshop alongside the artist Cheryl Fortier, who was teaching a watercolor workshop. We took our students on a field trip to Bleu de Lectoure to learn about the woad plant and how the color blue was created in the middle ages. Denise is a petite woman with very short hair and penetratingly blue eyes. As she stood before a huge vat of blue dye, stirring the rich liquid with a wooden paddle, I couldn’t help but think of her as a very wise woman with a strong connection to French history. And indeed, she mesmerized the audience of writers and artists with tales of how the color blue was brought into being from the little woad plant. She held up the soft green petals and then passed them through the crowd for all of us to examine, as she continued to enrapture us with her stories of France during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

I was so taken by the experience and stories that day that I bought a hand-dyed blue beret in the gift shop and have embraced blue ever since as my signature color. After this I will never take the color blue (or any color for that matter) for granted again, because I now see how much work and struggle and passion has gone into its creation.

Denise’s new workshop is in Montjoi, near Auvillar, and is open for public visits. She was actually born in America, raised in France by parents who surrounded her with classical music and European history. She and her late husband fell in love with the southwest of France and they fell in love with French blue. She became a woad master and over the years they worked and were able to create some of the most exquisite shades of blue. My beret is an example of her one-of-a-kind blues. No one in the world will ever have the same blue beret as me, because it has certain flaws that make it completely original.

Today, I ask Denise how is it that French women seem to have this natural knack for appreciating and choosing colors, and she explains that it’s all about history and tradition and symbolism:

“For many centuries colors had significance in terms of your social status, as well as your geographical location. A woman would choose a specific color depending on the time of the day, the year, her marital status, and her love status. In the court of France, where you had to be a fashion icon, if the king’s favorite wore a light shade of blue, that meant something, as well as wearing a pale red or a rich gold yellow. There was a code to respect. And this code was always handed down from mother to daughter, no matter if you were rich or poor, whether you lived in Paris or in the provinces. Dress codes were dictated by the colors.

For the French woman, color is used to seduce.

“I think that this understanding of color has remained with the French women. French women have always shown a certain innate ability to choose the color that makes them beautiful, making them almost always chic. Like Italy, France is a country of colors, in art, in history, and in decoration. The little girl learns from watching her mother, who looks at paintings and the different colors in nature. I truly believe that it is something inherent now. In France, seduction is important, and for the French woman, color is used to seduce. French women have lots of imagination and do not hesitate to use bright colors to enhance their looks.”

Never be afraid of bright colors.

I am very moved by Denise’s thought that mothers and daughters look at paintings together. They look at the colors in nature. I raised a young artist. She’s now thirty-three years old and has a daughter of her own, but I often think about how when she was just a little girl and I was studying screenwriting at UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television, she would accompany me for the day. We wandered through the sculpture garden and visited the art gallery. My daughter saw a lot of student films back then and she declared herself to be an artist from the time she could walk and talk. In fact, I remember taking her to a vintage shop in Van Nuys called Ragtime Cowboy, and they just happened to be having a sale on ballerina tutus. They were one dollar each, and we bought ten of them in a rainbow of colors.

Today, my daughter is a mother to little Junie, and a graphic designer. And she has a great eye for color! It’s exactly what Denise says. An appreciation and understanding of color is handed down from mother to daughter. So, if that’s the case, why not begin today? Take a walk in nature and notice the colors of the sky and the trees. Go to the museum and look for colors that feel meaningful to you. Ask yourself what colors create a kind of invisible thread between you and your ancestors. You might not quite understand why that particular shade of soft coral or even that vivid stroke of magenta makes you suddenly release a deep sigh, but I suggest you trust your instincts. Trust your body and your emotions when it comes to color, because this is how your ancestors, your grandmother and great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother, are talking to you, through time and space, and history.

Take a moment and listen to the sound that color makes in your heart.

Parisian Charm School Lesson

Many of us have had our “colors done,” meaning we met with an expert or we read the book that describes how to choose colors that are flattering to our skin tone. It’s all very pragmatic and has a certain science to it. The French will also have their “colors done” as a way of discovering what shades (autumn, winter, spring, summer) look best on them, but then French women take this knowledge to a much deeper level.

French women use their knowledge of color to find joie de vivre, beauty, peace, success, and love. Can choosing the right colors lead to love? French women will tell you, yes, absolument!

Practically all the French women I know have embraced the idea of a signature color. My friend Marie-Joëlle in Besançon, a university town southeast of Paris, uses color in a variety of ways—she owns a hair salon, so she’s very experimental with her choices. She’ll often wear shades of purple or plum, and mix it with an unexpected metallic, a silver jacket, or gold high-top sneakers. It sounds a bit wild, and it is, but it’s also incredibly eye-catching and stylish. When Jessica and I stayed with her family a few years ago, I noticed how when you first walked into her home, there was a room where one wall was painted bright yellow. Marie-Joëlle had a series of hats displayed on this wall. There must have been about twenty hats, and the entire effect was really charming.

• • •

IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY, FIND out what color range looks best on you and then choose your signature color. More than this, explore how various colors make you feel. What gives you that feeling of changing your horizons? Ask yourself what color reflects your personality and how you want to be seen in this world. How do you want a man to remember you? When he sees the color of the sky, will he think of you? French women know that color; clothing and décor are deeply personal, and so they will go on a lifelong search for self. Even the color of their cars reflect their psyche. (By the way, you’ll see lots of little cars in France with fanciful colors—pink, pale blue, orange, yellow, light green, and even turquoise.)

I have a wonderful friend in my hometown. Her name is Marianne, and I first met her at our local farmer’s market, where my husband and I have a booth selling vegetables and Marianne sells wildflowers and herbal infusions. Her banner reads LE JARDIN D’ISEULT (the garden of Iseult). Her ten-year-old son is named Tristan, so you can imagine how I was immediately fascinated by this young woman and through the hot summer days of sitting at our little booths and greeting customers, we became good friends.

During the holidays, Marianne and Tristan came for dinner and we got into a conversation about my hot pink chairs. Yes, despite Dr. Thompson’s protestations, we have two hot pink chairs in a kind of Louis XIV style with a fleur-du-lis print. My father said something about moving a chair and we were confused about which chair he was referring to. This is when Marianne said, “Oh, you mean the bordello chairs?” At first, I thought this should distress me, but I realized I kind of liked the idea. Yes, these are sexy chairs. They’re hot pink and they connect with my being the daughter of a very showy lady—vaudeville/burlesque—and I am not a beige sofa kind of gal! I’m a hot pink velvet chair kind of gal, and like Valerie’s orange, hot pink gives me energy. It makes me happy.

I hope this inspires you to ask yourself, What makes me happy? It might be a peaceful blue or the purity of white or purple. Or it might be bright orange. The point is to find your happiness.

And as an aside, men love-love-love happy women.

Consider that the color you choose is a conversation opener, as powerful as carrying a bunch of lilies down Boulevard Saint-Germaine, because when you dress in something particularly pretty and stylish and unique to your own personality, you are sending out an unspoken message that you are confident and would welcome a little lighthearted flirtation.

Parisian Charm School Pratique

This week, take a chance on a color that you love, but perhaps feel is a little de trop (too much). At first, just wear this color as an accessory such as a scarf. Ask yourself how it makes you feel and pay attention to how people respond to your color.

Look at nature to see what colors capture your imagination. Experiment in your home by adding colorful accents. Buy a couple of throw pillows and see how the color makes you feel and how it reacts to your home’s surroundings.

Let your colors have a conversation with one another.

Do this by first separating all the clothes in your closet by color and then take them one by one and introduce each item to a contrasting mate. See what lights up your eyes and your heart.