Great Colour Combos : Vermillion/Cerulean

One of my favourite colour combinations, always connected in my mind to Tri-ang Toys  and anything tin really...

Cerulean (sir-roo-le-on) is a handy word for something that's not quite turquoise, not quite sky blue despite its probable derivation from the Latin caelum = sky. 

Vermillion - something deliciously bright that's not quite scarlet, not really orange.  (I might be stretching it sometimes, I know.)

Other Great Colour Combos here

[Images are leaves from my scrapbook.  Forgive me not attributing them.]

Great Colour Combos II : Red & Green China Style

Mao by Andy Warhol

From one of my all-time favourite fashion shoots Vogue in China October 1979.Why don't they still dress like this?  I know, but still..

The fibreglass version by Sui Jianguo  here

Conveniently dressed Beijing cyclists

Red lacquer and green leather does it for me

Red Lacquer and Nature not bad either

Me as Mao


Images 4,5& 6 from China Style Photos Reto Gunti  ed. Taschen

Great Colour Combinations: Red & Pink

One of the most depressing aspects of the landscape of bringing up children  is the cacophony of crude colours or sickly pastels.  (Luckily my small grandson prefers a more muted palette: any kind of hose pipe, mobile phones, tools, car steering wheels..  )  I  turn to Hollywood musical ensembles or ballet on You Tube to find the World's unsung colourist heroes - costume designers.  The gift of creating a moving tableau that is gorgeous but subtle, I always find miraculous.  


Well here, the bold juxtaposition of pink and red, or pink and vermillion is not exactly subtle but they really pull it off in these two films.  As a child with red hair, my mother would never let me wear pink. As much as I loved her,  I never forgave her then and still don't. 


Here is Rosemary Clooney in Red Garters (1954) directed by George Marshall.  Costumes by Edith Head.  (No surprise there for genius.)





And Dorothy Jeakins created these shockingly wonderful petticoats in The Music Man (1962) dir. Morton DaCosta.