I once had a colleague that completely put me off of navy. We worked in a boutique together, many moons ago, when I was young and impressionable and she was older and much more sophisticated than I. Although we had a fairly similar taste in clothes. She stated emphatically that Navy was for people that were too scared to wear black. So of course, I foolishly allowed that to colour my own opinion. Which is such a silly thing to do. I spent years avoiding navy and wearing black instead and always looking drained and tired.
Then one day, somehow, I finally twigged that navy suits me. I was out with a group of new friends, and one of them casually mentioned that black didn’t suit me. Not in a mean way – but very matter of fact. (She’s Dutch). It was like an epiphany. Now I had a get out clause. I can’t wear that – it doesn’t suit me. Of course there are lots of colours that don’t suit me, but it never occurred to me before that black could be one of them.
So I somehow moved on to Safe Navy. Gently steered by yet another friend, herself always dressed in shades of blue, who stated that as she had blue eyes she hardly wore anything else. It was like turning on a light – Ooooh, I have blue eyes too, maybe that’s why blue suits me. Uh ya think? But now it wasn’t safe in a provincial, boring, scared to wear black namby pamby kind of way. That I’d been scared of. It suddenly had connotations of something else, safe and secure in the knowledge that I was wearing something that looked great on me instead of a colour that made me look older and drained. Perhaps that’s also just crossing over the magic colour fence that comes when you turn thirty and suddenly decide you need to look younger rather than looking older and more grown up in a desperate attempt to be taken seriously? Now rather than be taken seriously, I’m hell bent on not looking too serious.
Secure in my Safe Navy, I can look almost smart, and still colourful. So now I’ve made Safe Navy into Cool Navy – all in my head.
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