Sofa So Good

Photographs: Jasmine Deporta for Some Magazine.

The Kingdom of Matchy Matchy has been a place I've mostly veered away from; usually associating colour-co-ordination the realm of proms and heels and handbags and necklaces all dipped in identical lacquer. Or that girl who used to work with us at Topshop who once announced "When I does red, I does red." And she wasn't lying; at the next staff party she wore rows of beads, lipstick, bags, shoes and possibly even eyeshadow all in postbox red. It wasn't my cup of tea; there was a lot of red, but the idea of being brave enough to really go all out with one colour stayed with me and I always think to myself 'must try harder.'

This wonderful editorial from Jasmine Deporta for Some Magazine has got me thinking about colour again, of picking a palette and twinning a peachy jumper with a pink skirt, or waking up and deciding 'TODAY WILL BE SAGE THURSDAY" and going for herby colours and mermaid green nail varnish. Matching yourself to your surroundings, as in this editorial is also appealing. Remember Zach Braff in that shirt and wallpaper combination in Garden State? Even if being a normcore furniture chameleon isn't actually that practical when you're on the move, being better with colour, with interesting and 'off' shades, is something I'm aiming for. When I was visiting my Granny's house in Bristol last weekend I kept noticing lots of accents of pink dotted about the place; a chair she'd found on the street, uber-camp and fluro, a wooden foot-stall which looked like it had been dyed with magenta ink and the spray foam loft installation, poking out from corners as the attic undergoes a renovation, was the colour of strawberry ice-cream. She always has a fantastic eye for small details and colour is one of them; the ability to slot items and clothes in delicious tones into her life. 

It also strikes me that paying attention to the colour make-up of an outfit is a good way of fielding out the impressions that we take from the photographs, the art, the adverts, the music and the films that we come into contact with on a daily basis. Last weekend I was in London and, as ever, left each gallery I visited with a few more jottings in my journal. I often wonder what the purpose of these jottings is; I'll write down the name of paintings that I love and come back to them perhaps at a later date, but often not. It's more often about being struck by colours and composition and allowing yourself to be sucked into that wonderful moment of quiet and slowness that comes with walking around a gallery. The notes come from being terrified of forgetting what it was that was affecting in the moment. A bit like the days of listening to the radio before Shazam and pricking ears and shushing anybody around in order to hear the track title from the presenter. So these jottings, a painting by Duncan Grant, a striking landscape by Graham Sutherland, could be the starting point for drawing colour into a wardrobe, of taking the yellows or purples or greens from one of Roger Fry's omega designs and finding a way of wearing them together, of justifying that scribble in the moment and pronouncing "when I does yellow, I does yellow."