Thread: Color Psychology of Costumes

I'm that girl who loves color! I don't think I've seen an ugly one yet; maybe some incompatible pairings, but never a color that shouldn't "be". I frequently think about the meaning behind colors, how they make us feel and specifically how an audience responds to them psychologically, energetically and emotionally. Most of the time, when I'm getting ready for a show, I ask myself, "What color does this evening feel like?" And select from my collection of sequins accordingly ( . . . which reminds me, I desperately need a pink costume!) Sometimes, I ask people, "If you had to think of ______ in terms of a color, what color would it be?" In Artist's Circle we have chosen colors and "danced" them. A very interesting exercise. Musicians sometimes speak of certain chords as having colors. Anyway, I digress.

I have a book on feng shui and in it is a list of colors and descriptions of what energies they bring into home and life. I'll paraphrase a few of them below, shortly. But what I want to know is do any of you have a certain costume color preference? Why? Do you notice if audience members respond a certain way to certain colors? Why do you think that is? How do certain colors make you feel? And, if any of you have studied psychology, can you share the meaning of some of the colors with us? Any images of interesting color combinations you care to post?

Colors

Pink - healing and represnets romance and joy.

Orange - creative color representing joy togetherness and sociability

Yellow - gathering color that stimulates mental energy and represents wisdom. Expansive.

Green - balance, harmony and peace.

Black - money and power

Purple - belongs to the philosopher, dreamer and visionary

Red - color of life, relates to growth, happiness, joy, passion and virtue. (SIC - red is the most auspicious color in feng shui)

Rainbow Children, raise your hands!

Red?

Hmmm ... let me get the book . . .

I update the thread with "red" Lauren. Red is great. Feng Shui LOVEs it and so do I!

Colors.

Blue? Especially turquoise blue?

I love colors! I was going to ask about blue also! And how about white?

On a psychological / physiological level, when you pair red and yellow you stimulate appetite and speed. this is why most fast food restaurants are yellow and red.

Purple usually denotes calmness and regal-ness. It is also considered to be a colour of spirituality and protection.

I find that I unfailingly gravitate towards green costumes. Green is the colour of the heart chakra, and things which grow. In Western astrology, green is the colour of Taurus, which is my birth sign, so this makes perfect sense.

Up until recently, I have shied away from red in my wardrobe, both as a dancer and in my life. But red, once again in the western world and in Indian philosophy, red is the colour of power. It's the base chakra. This can be a bit scary. (And I'll tell you my D.C. red dress story if you want to be entertained.) But red entered my work wardrobe a couple of years ago to the point that I now own 5 red dresses. I also own 2 red bedlahs. I am thinking I want more.

Colours I shy away from? Yellow, because it is hard to find a shade which doesn't make me look ill. Lime greens, same reason. I have one orange dress which looks great on me, but I am not sure i would choose to repeat the experiment. And turquoise which has strong green overtones.

{{{HUGS}}}

This may not make much sense at all (or even be true) but a long time ago (I think 20 years, but it stayed with me) I have read that people gravitate towards blue who are carving / needing love. Not saying that they are on loved, it's just that it's more important to them at the moment than at other times.
I also read in the same book, that purple is often associated with children and childlike minds (not in a bad way), and children, and often pregnant women gravitate towards shades of purple.

I don't know how much truth there is to it, it was some psychological book.

I, myself have favorite colors based on situations. I love burgundy to wear, but even more so in my bedroom and bathroom (it's cozy and warm and beautiful). Interestingly, I have no burgundy costume, and besides one raspberry, never had one. I love blue, but cannot stand it in my kitchen. (??)

I love purple and orange both as colors and to wear and as costumes. For costumes I like all light, pastel colors and all bright ones (neon bright, eye catchy type). To wear I wouldn't go as extreme, but I do like brights.
I find that I like to wear beige or gray at certain times only (no reason), but for costumes I love beige, it looks kind of sexy nude, or silver.
So for me, color always have some kind of purpose.

They actually suggest that you don't paint the nursery lavender because it makes babies nauseous.

{{{HUGS}}}

I wore yellow tonight. I knew when I woke up this morning that yellow was the color. The venue was a dimly lit Moroccan restaurant so it really brightened up the space. The color felt good. I felt energetic, extroverted, playful and a little innocent. I felt magnetic - in the sense that the audience was drawn to me in an optimistic and good-natured way. Interestingly enough, it's a costume that I rarely wear. I'll have to think about that more.

TahiraDancer - would you share the difference in "feeling" between your green versus red costume in performance? They are opposite one another on the color wheel. I'm curious if the feeling is the same.

Marianna - I've also read that colors of the purple persuasion tend to be more attractive to children and adolescents than adults.

I'm intrigued by this "situational" color preference. I couldn't do blue in the kitchen either - too cold. But what about in performance? To me, it says safe, trustworthy, reflective and calm. But the feeling would change if orange, yellow or red were added as an accent.

According to my feng shui book . . .

BLUE - represents spiritualism, thoughtfulness, consideration and care. Faith, constancy and fidelity.

When I wear my green costumes I feel more playful. In red I tend to feel much more bold. It's hard to blend into the foliage when you are wearing red!

Here is a link to a good color symbolism chart. It is very western which will have some correlation to Eastern ideas but also many differences.

Color Symbolism Chart

(I do distance healing. One of the tools used is colour. It's great fun!)

{{{HUGS}}}

Red- I don't wear it on a day to day basis but when I wear red costuming I feel joy and freedom, and I just send it out to the world!
Purple- I don't wear purple at all, not sure why but it makes me feel introverted and a bit sad. When I dance in purple my show comes off slow and I feel I loose something. Pep maybe?
Black- I can't wear black b/c I feel waay sexy in it lol! My huby won't let me wear all black anymore. Tee he"

There's not many colors I don't like, and I can wear most of them. But if you forced me to pick one color family and stick with it, it'd be blue shades. I love turquoise, aqua, pale blue, and white, in various combinations together. They have this sea goddess feel, and also calming and relaxing. I love dark blues and indigo too, and they can have a more mysterious feel in the right outfit.

By the way, did you know scents have colors too? I'm reading a nonfiction book called 'The Scent Trail' in which a perfumer has her clients do a 'color profile' to see if a person's favorite colors match her favorite smells. An excerpt:

"Anastasia sent me to Adam James, a color expert and colleague of
hers. When I arrived for my appointment he immediately opened a
cabinet containing shelves and shelves of little bottles filled
with colored liquids. Some were bright, while others were pale and
opalescent. He asked me to choose my favorite colours and instantly
I went for the cool, pale, pastel colours, the light cerulean blues,
the violets and the lemon yellows, the pale purples, pale greens and
the blues of my favorite gems: sapphire and aquamarine. I was
worried that these colours might define me as fey, ungrounded and
indecisive, but I had chosen the ones I honestly preferred and I
listened, fascinated, as Adam told me how the colors I had chosen
related to the scents that Anastasia and I had thought likely to
make up my bespoke perfume.

The light purple represented iris; the aqueous blue was ambergris.
Adam told me that my color selection showed that I possessed
intellectual clarity, inner joy and that I was self-aware. He told
me that the colors I had chosen also represented beauty and
refinement, but he suggested that I was about to face a period of
change and new beginnings. The green I'd chosen represented my love
of nature and suggested that I was intuitive and inspirational. He
said there was something ethereal and otherworldly about me."


I'm passionate about scent like you are about color. I make my own perfumes, soap, candles and other scented products but still haven't quit buying other people's creations, either. Guess what my friends get for Christmas and other gift giving occasions.

I love almost all the colors for dancing, and I go through phases with them. I went through a blue phase last year. I really like orange and red for feeling outgoing and vibrant in a show. When I am in the audience I love to study the different colors onstage and see how I react to them. Orange and red really "pop" and can look really good together onstage.

I'm not that fond of brown costumes, although they can be very pretty, brown just isn't a "festive" color to me and I like to feel like dancing is a party!

I am a lover of color (I kind of have to be, as a make-up artist - LOL!) and find that colors really evoke different moods and are a specific way of communicating. My favorite color is pink - always has been - and I tend to drift toward pink costumes. I love all shades, but find that the more saturated tones, as opposed to pastel, suit me best. In fact, my new costume is hot pink!

Lately, I have been in a purple phase. I have no idea why, but I find myself wearing purple at least four or five days out of the week. And I never realized how much purple I have in my wardrobe until I found myself in this phase.

There is no color I avoid - I love them all! I think it's all about shade/tone. There is a shade of each color that looks good on everyone, I believe. I just tend to favor jewel tones (emerald, purple, ruby red, deep pink) and tropical colors (orange, bright yellow). Oh, and I love brown!

Colors can mean different things in different cultures. In the Middle East, they don't always make the same assumptions we do. According to Roxxanne Shelaby, Arabs see black and white in almost exactly opposite terms of how we do. While we associate white with purity and virginal modesty, they think of black, as in the traditional color for a chador, and when we'd gravitate toward LBDs for fancy occasions and black lingerie to have a sexy time, they'd go for comparable clothes in white. You've also got all sorts of cultural connotations to other colors, too. For example, green is considered the favorite color of the Prophet Mohammed, which carries with it a sense of commitment to Islam and also good will and luck, so that's why you see green featuring so predominately on the flags of countries with large Islamic populations, political murals, headbands and banners, signs at mosques, etc. There are also some color associations that seem to come from earlier pagan roots, which is why I believe blue tends to be the predominate color for "Evil Eye" decorations.

This discussion seems to be mostly about how colors make Westerners feel, and honestly, I wonder how much our perceptions are affected by the fact that we've been repeatedly told that introverts like blue and McDonald's used to paint its franchises red and yellow to make people eat quickly. I should think it would be difficult for psychologists to find unbiased subjects to participate in those experiments, since almost everyone comes into them with preconceived ideas. If you like a color and feel attractive wearing it, then that's great and it no doubt changes the way people around you view you (confidence is attractive), but it doesn't always follow that the audience receives your performance in a particular way because of the color of your outfit.

How about gold, silver and white?

and what of people of the saucy animal print persuasion?

I've noticed the last few times I've danced at a restaurant that when I wear my burgandy/coin bella the audience is jush Eh. but when I wear my peach Venus the audience is attentive and appreciative. Idk if it's because we don't have stage lights yet and therefore the burgandy is just too dark, or if it is all about peach being a happy, inviting color

Good points, Tourbeau. Colors have certain connotations depending on cultural perspective. In China, for example, white is the color of mourning and yellow is the color in which the dead are buried. It is also the color of control. So, a person's culture will mitigate the meaning of a color. However, I would like to add that the human body does have physiological responses to color. Green, for example is the only color where the retina does not have to adjust to perceive the color as green. Red has been shown to raise heart rates in human subjects, whereas blue has the opposite physical effect. The physical responses to color seem to transcend cultural meanings. If this is the case, I can't help but wonder if there is an emotional or psychological transcendence that is independent of cultural meanings as well.

My favorite costume, hands down is my orange one. I also wear quite a bit of orange in my daily wear. It seems that I get an enthusiastic response from audience members when I wear orange. Your point has me thinking, that perhaps it's how I feel in the color that elicits the audience "response" just as much as the color.

Thanks for sharing your perspective.

Depending on the print I'd say either black, brown and white (leopard, cheetah and giraffe) or black and white (zebra). Brown according to my Fen Shui book is the color of reliability, stability and practicality. It also represents stillness. Sounds like a powerful color for a taksim! The other colors in the print would temper the brown impact somewhat, I think.

Originally Posted by mlacombe

and what of people of the saucy animal print persuasion?

Originally Posted by floreatmanon

BLUE - represents spiritualism, thoughtfulness, consideration and care. Faith, constancy and fidelity.

This is more what I thought blue was. Craving love, etc. I hadn't heard of before. It's funny and good that this issue comes up. When I was younger, I was a passionate lover of all things red. Now I gravitate towards more things blue and even green.

But you are right - all colors are beautiful, and for those who say black is not a color, I can only say because it is defined as having "no color" I say it's because it is its own color.

Colors for costuming: I don't associate colors with feelings normally, and definitely not when I'm dancing. I have on average 10-18 costume (it changes as I make some, sell some, etc). I normally have 1 costume in each color, or shade. So i would have 1 lavender and 1 purple, (to me that's two shades of same color :) ) but not have 2 purples or 2 reds, etc.

When I pick costumes I just go buy what I feel like, what would look good on me (weight fluctuation: you have to ask the question: is it actually going to fit ? :) Also I try to space my costumes evenly so I wear them all. I dance about 15 times/month and more than half requires me to wear 2 costumes. So for me it's what's practical (often need floorwork, lighting, audience).

I like pretty much all colors, I couldn't choose one right now over others. For my costumes I avoid darker ones, because in not well lit restaurant (like one Moroccan restaurant, 2 hookah lounges) they don't show up well. So I don't have brown, olive, navy blue, burgundy, black, etc. Instead, I choose light shades, beige, turquoise, baby blue, pink, silver, etc.

How I feel in my costumes: it's not based on color, it's based on the type of costume. some of my lycra costumes make me feel elegant, others sexy, some full skirt ones like old-skool, or feel like I'm in a fairy tale :)), etc. But it's never because of the color.

As far as regular life: I choose clothes based on color. In my closet everything is by color, so I have fancy dresses, t-shirts, blouses, sweatshirts all together just because they're one color. My closet is organized like the rainbow :)

I'm planning to write an article on synesthesia, hopfully for GS, and how it relates to dance. I'd love to include some of the thoughts here (although not synesthesia, the psychology of color is part of the overall topic). Would that be okay with any of the people who've responded thus far?

Originally Posted by Sonja2

I'm planning to write an article on synesthesia, hopfully for GS, and how it relates to dance. I'd love to include some of the thoughts here (although not synesthesia, the psychology of color is part of the overall topic). Would that be okay with any of the people who've responded thus far?

On your new blog?

Blog, new? shaaare :)

Originally Posted by floreatmanon

Good points, Tourbeau. Colors have certain connotations depending on cultural perspective.

Colors can also have personal connotations that are unique to individuals. People are more likely to have positive responses to colors they associate with good memories and negative responses to ones that provoke unpleasant thoughts. I often catch myself thinking of my grandmother when I see someone wearing an attractive shade of purple, because that was one of her favorite colors. By the same token, anything that conjures up an image of an orange popsicle reminds me of being in the hospital to have my tonsils removed when I was six years old.