One of the great qualities of the colour orange is that it lends itself well to the ‘fantastic plastic’ era. The 70’s saw a huge orange movement, most household appliances and tupperware were orange, I recall many a late 70’s model cars being orange and pretty much anything that was rubber, plastic or melamine was in fact in a shade of orange. As a child I remember seeing bright orange bench-tops in the kitchen of a friends house (very out there), and played tea parties with my parents bright orange crockery set they had received as a wedding present a few years earlier.

Somehow after all those traumatic orange experiences, I find the colour refreshing and happy, strong yet fruity and most of all it grows on you. ♥

The Style Tree’s ♥ colour of the week this week is orange ♥. Yet another colour that took years to grow on me. As a designer one finds its limiting using orange and truthfully one can overdo the colour. My most recent research for the colour orange renewed my fascination with the colour and proved to me its versatile nature and range of many shades.

One thing that springs to mind with the colour orange ♥ is the idea of a bowl of fruit. My kitchen recently had a mini makeover and I now have a huge shallow dish in a cornflower blue colour showcasing the most delicious and luscious looking mango’s, apricots, white nectarines and lemons. Each morning I walk past this bowl and it refreshes me looking at the plump mangos and delicious apricots. I usually grab one or two pieces and have them as a snack.

One of the key tones of orange I keep seeing is that of a rusty orange. The colour is currently showing up on runways in Europe and the US. The naturally occurring in nature colour almost always reflects Autumn/Fall in fashion and in nature. Worn with chocolate and black it can lift an outfit without making it pop too much and tends too look extraordinary when worn by someone sporting an auburn or ginger coloured hair do and a dash of heavy eye makeup involving a deep green and grey..

Look out for orange as it looks to be making a comeback in fashion toward the colder months in Australia and has been seen in homewares forecasts for the later part of 2010. ♥