Finding Yves

Finding the colour in me

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“Colour is sensitivity in material form, substance in its purest form”

-Yves Klein

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So, those who know me, know that I have an issue with colour. My wardrobe, for as long as I can now remember, resembles a flat white. It starts low in moody black, navy, brown, green & caramel that hang in the form of syrupy matt leather jackets, dark navy & burnt burgundy stripped blazers, dark denim, baggy structured trousers, rough linen and silky flowing shirts. They swirl amongst the cooling calm of cream speckled blazers and the sacred white t-shirt. Blended into soothing oversized warm beige sweaters & full length coats, with just a hint of soft yellow floating in the depths. Soft fluffy wool sweaters that sit like clouds on top.

Oh I forgot grey. I’ll give it a separate paragraph out of respect. Let’s make the coffee cup 50 shades of grey, as grey is the General of my wardrobe. It dominates, marches up and down appearing everywhere, the concrete that binds & holds it all together.

What I have learned over time is that it’s not that I don’t like colour, it’s simply that it affects me, deeply. There is an emotional connection that I’ll never truly understand. I’m highly sensitive to colour, probably to life in general and that has to be managed. I feel everything, I see everything and my mind questions it all constantly - the colours, textures, tones, shapes, reflections, shadows, positions - always on, always revolving, so much so that it has taken over and shaped my entire life.

For me to introduce colour is to introduce an emotion, a feeling that you are introducing to your day or life, something to be taken seriously! The tones I wear represent my values, who I hope to be, they remind me of who I am, what I love the most and what’s truly important to me. Those tones comfort me every day. It’s not the cloths themselves, it’s that they represent, my true self. They say what I don’t get to say or what I’m too shy to say. They are my steady stream of unwavering self that hold me firm.

I have tried colour, a splash of bright green perhaps, a little zhuzh! It’s usually a hard no, no colour, no print. It’s a rule now that brings me comfort. Another reason for my calm toned wardrobe is that I believe I’m a very colourful person on the inside. I feel so full of life, ideas, images, joy, love and general emotion that I mostly keep under wraps all day, that by the end of it I usually feel like I’m about to burst! That’s enough colour for me to handle.

Though there is one colour that stirs something in me since the first time I set my eyes on it at London Tate Modern a few years ago. It hit me like a bolt that I’ve never truly recovered from. Its name is International Klein Blue (IKB), by the artist Yves Klein.

It’s a blue that makes my stomach go weak, blood rushing, mood changing that makes me want to dive head first into it and swim around like I’m in a dream. It makes me want to be the lady from La Mariée by Marc Chagall, also painted in the 1950s - (you know the one from the Notting Hill movie with the fiddle playing goat and floating lady in the sky? Julia Roberts character, Anna, says it feels like how being in love should be. Floating through a dark blue sky). Beautiful. Anyhow, I’m her floating in this dreamy blue, forever. Or like Yves Klein himself in his 1960 Leap into the Void, he completed the illusion that he was capable of flight. There I go, into the blue.

Yves Klein was a French artist who took out a patent on this colour in the early 1960s. He used it on a series of monochrome blue paintings and splashed it on nude bodies as performance art. The bodies becoming the brushes. I won’t give you a full history as I’m also still learning. I have actually attempted to invite this colour into my life. I wore a blue trouser as a bridesmaid to my best friends wedding, with a white pleated chiffon top. I also bought a blue jumper once. Neither quite hit the mark.

Ever since I’ve been waiting for the moment to introduce this colour into my life. It’s a sacred thing for me, it holds meaning and memory. If it is going to stir the same feelings every time I look at it then doesn’t it deserve thought, time and consideration? Luckily I’m not the only one that loves International Klein Blue. It is being celebrated in every form you could possibly imagine.

I do wonder how I will feel when I finally take the leap to choose the piece that will sit with me for the rest of time. Will it be a piece of art, a cup, a notebook, clothing? I wonder will it get on with General Grey if it does make it through into my flat white wardrobe. I think they’d make good friends. The dream would be a Henryk.studio Ultra Matte Ode to Yves piece of art, a pigmented concrete and polymer on board. Or maybe never take the leap and just live with the dream.

This picture below is how I would feel welcoming the perfect piece of blue into my life. The satisfying feeling of adding another piece to the jigsaw that is me. Joy.

Welcome to A Piece of Me.

Happy Christmas everyone and thanks for reading.

Lots of love

Una x