I tried to 80s trend of getting my colours done

Turns out I've been dressing - and living - all wrong.

My flat is a gorgeous temple of serene white. When people walk in they are surprised at how zen it is. So am I. I am not particularly zen or minimalist but it’s my friend’s flat and she designed it like this and I’ve kept it like this. There are white walls, white curtains, white book shelves and a cream rug. It’s a small flat on the second floor with two huge windows so most of the colour comes from the multi-coloured sky, the tree that’s outside my second window - whose young green leaves are super silky at the moment - and of course the Tasty Fish sign.*

In lockdown, I fantasised about painting the flat blue and having a bright green rug. I spent hours on YouTube watching interior videos labelled ‘Bohemian London home’ and I became fixated on one day having the money to buy this rug.

I craved colour.

Colour and beauty.

I rarely go to art galleries but suddenly in the global emergency I wanted - needed, even - to go the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. Instead I ordered art books and would turn their glossy pages over and over, soaking up the images. Inhaling them even.

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Beauty is something I've been unconsciously rebelling against the last few years. At least when it came to my appearance. After spending my twenties and thirties in the usual quicksand of never feeling pretty enough, always thinking I needed to lose weight or fix my teeth or have some latest bit of clothes to be good enough, I spent most of my forties not bothering. I went from one blow dry a week to barely brushing my hair, I stopped wearing make up and often wore the same clothes all week.

I was done presenting myself for others, trying to be found attractive. I was done with the beauty treadmill. I was also skint so couldn't afford the beauty treadmill. And so I opted out and in my head I think I made this some kind of empowered choice. Maybe it was, but maybe, actually, it wasn’t.

My wardrobe became a hanging swamp - a kind of tweedy mush of browns, greys, dark greens and denims. I told myself that was now anti-consumerist! So much more than my appearance! In fact, I was depressed and broke and the clothes weren’t helping.

During lockdown I took to wearing a long cream cardigan that I’d found in a charity shop. It became my ‘house coat’, dressing gown, jacket… everything. At some point my neighbours staged an intervention. ‘I like this cardigan very much,’ Nelly lied. ‘But do you think we have seen enough of it?” 'Then, the ever-so-sweetly delivered suggestion: ‘Do you think you might feel better if you wash your hair?’

The answer as I’m sure you’ll know: You will always feel better if you wash your hair.

Beauty matters, not for other people’s approval but for ourselves. And when we - or at least when I - stop caring about it, it’s not a great sign.

And so I have started washing my hair again and even - to mum’s great shock - started ironing things. ‘I didn’t even know you had an iron, Marianne.’

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I'm realising now that BEAUTY is nothing to do with having money to buy new clothes or trying to make yourself good enough for the world. Beauty is a celebration of life. Just because. My mum makes a tomato sandwich a thing of beauty. The way she cuts the tomatoes, the white pepper scattered on them, the carefully cut squares, all put on a proper plate and served with a proper pot of tea, with milk in a jug (never ever put the milk carton on the table!).

She makes every place she is in beautiful. Things are placed, just so. Meals are properly prepared. Hair is brushed and lipstick put on.

Last year I had 'my colours done' for an article. Having your colours done was a big thing in the eighties and nineties, then it went away and is now having a moment again thanks to TikTok videos. It involves someone draping dozens of different colours around your face and seeing which shades light you up. And it's incredible the difference it makes. Some colours made me look ashen and ancient, others alive and peppy. Some colours - no joke - gave my face the effect of having had a very expensive facial. I glowed.

I knew going in that I was an Autumn. Autumn shades are what you would think they are - browns, dark greens, burnt orange. As a redhead these are the colours I've always worn.

After forty odd years I knew what worked for me.

Only, it turned out I didn't. "You're Spring," the consultant told me as she wrapped tomato red, Quality Street purple and luminous green fabric around my face. The colours were garish. Too much. "I look like a children's TV presenter," I said. "I would never wear these colours."

"Really?" she asked. "Do you think I look like a children's television presenter?"

I looked at her hot pink dress and matching lips. She looked radiant and alive. Vibrant. Not a hint of Playschool about her.

"No," I said.

When she wrapped the Autumn shades around me, I looked so much greyer. My eyes disappeared. “You look school marmy” my stylist tells me.

Then we tried pastel summer shades. “You look like you need to call in sick,” is the feedback.

She put the Spring shades back around me and boom! My face popped alive. My eyes looked bigger and shinier and my skin rosier. I looked alive. I looked younger. This sounds strange but even my jaw looked sharper.

I walked out confused that everything I thought suited me, was in fact draining me.

I realised how much nonsense I'd absorbed about what looks good. The classic black, understated grey, blah blah blah. How many messages we are given about beauty being about fitting in, not being too loud, being subtle...

It felt like I would need to be a whole different person to wear those bright colours.

But then I thought of all the colour I’d been craving in lockdown. Maybe that new person was already trying to burst through.

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This Spring has been radiant. The blues of the sky, the pink of the blossom, the alive green of new leaves... it's like the colours of the world were wiped clean over the last month. There is a blossom on our street and every time I see it I get a little shock with its beauty and the fact that it's just hanging out looking ostentatiously beautiful for us all to enjoy, at no cost.

Author and biologist Rupert Sheldrake recently posted a substack which asks "Why is There So Much Beauty in the World?" He makes the case that flowers don't need to be as stunning as they are just to attract pollinators. Bees will visit simple coloured shapes. So why the lavishness?

He argues that beauty is a fundamental principle of the universe, alongside truth and goodness. Beauty is woven into the very fabric of being.

When I read this I googled ‘John O’Donohue beauty’. (Whenever I want to feel deep and wise I google what Irish poet and former priest has to say on any topic. I then quote him, as if I spend my evenings reading philosophy, instead of watching Seinfeld. Again. )**

John O’Donohue writes: "The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere – in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion and in ourselves. No-one would desire not to be beautiful. When we experience the Beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming. We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul."

Beauty is like food. We need it. It's the kind of harmony that calms our systems, that reminds us of what is true.

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We live in a society that has twisted beauty into economics, selling us a bastardised version of what's beautiful. Magazines show strange pictures of serious-looking people in weird poses glaring at the camera while wearing £500 trainers. This isn't beauty - this is commerce.

A flower does not have to bring out new season collections - a rose is a rose is a rose and thank God for it.

I wonder if colour and beauty could change the world - or rather not the change the world, but bring us back to what’s true. What’s worth living for.

Last week I went to a couple of talks on the subject of what our future might look like. I found myself drawn to the speakers who looked fun. One speaker - Clare Farrell, a founder of XR - wore a glorious pink dress with matching pink hair. ‘I want to be in your gang,’ I thought.

The revolution I want to be part of must be joyful, colourful, beautiful.

Last week Rose Rouse - another radiantly colourful person and co-founder of Advantages of Age - shared the story of Elizabeth Sweetheart, the 84-year-old "Green Lady of Brooklyn" who wears only green, including green hair and shoes. Elizabeth says green is the colour of joy, nature, and peace.

Elizabeth is also an artist who paints beautiful fabric designs. She once made clothes for big fashion names, but what she really loves is making the world a more colourful and loving place.
(Credit: @greenladyofbrooklyn )

I've learned that colour and beauty are not about conforming or consuming - they're about celebrating life, in all its vibrancy.

I never did get the bright green rug or paint the walls blue, but my neighbour gave me this wall hanging which is either completely unhinged, fabulous or both.

As for the clothes, some brighter colours have found their way into my wardrobe.

I think I might be entering my 'When I'm old I'll wear Quality Street purple' era.

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SOME COLOUR INSPIRATION

Every month there is a Colour Walk at Spitalfields market where people dress up in their finery. It looks gorgeous.

Also check out the radiance of Florence Given with her pink hair and joyous wardrobe.

I got my colours done with Sandy Lancaster

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RANDOM OTHER THOUGHTS

My health continues to improve and so I am finding my way back to a working routine. Thank you so much to people for sticking with me and for those of you sending me loving nudges to get back on with it.

I am doing a three day workshop on writing from your life at Listowel Writers Week 29/30/31 May. If anyone fancies a scribble pls come. You don’t need to be a writer or even want to be a writer, we will just move a pen over paper and see what comes out. No pressure at all.

Also I’ll be talking at Wilderness Festival this summer, in the UK. Not sure of the specifics yet but I will let you know.

Oh and look, I hired an AI companion for mum. She didn’t like it.

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*For new readers, welcome! Tasty Fish is the chip shop I spent a lot of time staring at and posting pictures of in lockdown. These pictures developed a cult following around the world - I’m bigging it up by why not - and the artist John Paul Flintoff ended up creating a print of the image.

** At least it’s comedy I’m falling asleep to now. I seem to have burned through my serial killer era. Someone sent me a link to a podcast with a psychologist explaining that our obsession with crime dramas is a sign of collective trauma. So now I’m opting for tinned laughter avoidance instead!