The colour Red
While I’m not saying I wouldn’t be horrified to find myself in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian world of The Handmaid’s Tale (where fertile women are assigned to high-ranking couples to bear children for them), the red of their compulsory robes… it makes me swoon. The deep, rich raspberry colour, based on Renaissance art where Mary Magdalene wore red and the Virgin Mary blue, is so perfect it would take me a few minutes to cast aside the offending garment.
Red has long been symbolic of both positive and negative associations. In ancient Egypt it represented not only vitality and victory, but also destruction and evil. In Christianity it has at different times represented both the saint and the sinner!
This is why I find pink so amusing. Red has paraded through time, inserting itself into religions, revolutions, wars, weddings and art. All the while, tugging at its shirtsleeve, is pink, the fun-loving sibling, swathing babies and adding a pop of colour to décor. And yet they work so well together, balancing depth with brightness. Ah, families…
COLOUR FACTS: RED
Cochineal dye is extracted from the eponymous scaled insect and was used for fabric up until the 19th century. It is now used as a natural food dye, replacing potentially carcinogenic synthetic red dyes.
Not all mammals can detect red and green. One theory as to why we can is so that we could tell if fruit was ripe. Reduced sensitivity to reds and greens is the most common form of colour blindness.
A fear of blushing or the colour red is known as ‘erythrophobia’.
A study from 2005 found that sports people have a higher chance of winning when wearing red.