The latest IFB Project asks, "what's your signature color?" and, while I don't think I could ever actually use the phrase "signature color" without feeling pretentious, it's an easy question for me to answer. Navy is the foundation on which my wardrobe rests.
This didn't happen intentionally. I never chose navy so much as it chose me. All I know is that one day I looked around I noticed that navy was my color.
When it came time to choose what stones would compliment the diamond in
my engagement ring, I knew I wanted sapphires, not just to honor my mother (they're her birthstone) but also because navy seemed like a color I wouldn't tire of wearing every day for the rest of my life.
Navy is forever.
Once, when friend told me she had no time for navy -- why did it need to exist, other than to trick her into accidentally wearing one navy sock and one black sock? -- I suddenly felt overcome with incredulous defensiveness. Why did
black need to exist? What made
it so great anyway, huh?
While navy is a good and practical neutral that can, despite frequent arguments to the contrary, be worn with black (ask Yve Saint Laurent if you don't believe me), my love for it extends beyond the practical and into fantasy. Two years ago, I wrote in
an installment of my retired feature "Color Theory," that navy is "a bit prep school, it's a bit sailor. It's
so French and yet so all American."
There's the practicality of navy, of course. There's the denim and the chambray and the perfect wool peacoat. But the fantasy of Navy is what makes me come back to it over and over again.
