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The future's here ... and it's orange

May 13, 2011 09:30

ByJan Shure, Jan Shure

3 min read

It is, let us be frank, the Cinderella of colours. If this colour was an act, it is the one not even Michael McIntyre could bring himself to vote for. It is the shade most frequently found on the sale rails alongside egg-yolk yellow.

We are, of course, talking orange. But orange seems to have tired of its loser status and has hired itself some really pricey PR this season, because designers like Jonathan Saunders, Stella McCartney, Diane von Furstenberg and Marc Jacobs have made it their shade du jour and it is all over the High Street, too.

So far, the JC has resisted anything other than passing mentions of this colour for two reasons: (1) a healthy scepticism that a significant number of real women (as opposed to Gisele, Kate, et al, forced to wear it for catwalk or shoot) will voluntarily splash their cash on this colour, and (2) with apologies to my website co-director and one of my very best friends, for whom orange is a signature colour, lighting up her skin in a way normally achieved by falling in love or spending a week at a spa having daily facials, for most of us orange next to our face does the same as, well, being dead.

But overcoming my prejudices, I have been investigating orange on your behalf, and it turns out to be wearable, provided you follow some basic rules (below left). And having established that anything, from a teensy slice of orange to a head-to-toe Tango, is do-able, the next issue is where to find the best orange.