Leaving some spots uncolored

I have become a White person.

No this is not a statement about my racial identity. It is purely aesthetic. I have recently discovered my love of the color white in all it’s variations. Ivory, cream, jasmine, titanium, I love them all. The simple pop of a clean color print on a white background can be beautiful.

This is a new thing.

I have never really paid attention to white.
I have always been intensely fond of bright colors. I wear them bravely. At college, people could often spot me from a distance because of the pink, jade and yellow outfit I would shamelessly sport around campus. As a student at Central Saint Martins, I devoted a whole Cultural Studies thesis to color and symbolism. On vacation in Mexico, market traders would call me ‘little Frida’ after the famously flamboyant Kahlo. The walls of my current house are covered with lovely variations of blue, green and yellow.

The whole world is my coloring book,  and I love to color.

The Indian connection
My heritage is Indian. India is where color is done like nowhere else on earth. For goodness sake, we have a whole city of pink! Former Vogue editor, Diana Vreeland, said that “pink is the navy blue of India”.  Travelling around India alone as a teenager, turned my eyes into giddy kaleidoscopes of color. Poor white, considered a color of mourning,  just never stood a chance.

Now, as a designer, I find myself gravitating more and more towards white. I still love bright colors, I just prefer them against a backdrop of calm white. Maybe it has something to do with age (maybe my tastes are maturing, and there is still hope for me!).

On Friday, when I wake up in the dazzling Chennai sunshine, you can be sure that my jaw will drop at the intense colors around me, but I’ll still search for a t-shirt supplier who has white shirts.

Coloring in is much more fun, when you know what to leave uncolored.