Quite often when the word “armour” is mentioned in connection with a fashion collection or a specific garment, we instantly think about heavy Medieval or Renaissance armours, forgetting that nature can provide us with great construction materials. So let's look at three forms of natural armouring and at the meanings behind them.
The first is a fine cloak woven from muka (prepared fibre from the harakeke New Zealand flax plant) in the taniko style. Taniko is the name of the ornamental geometric border at the bottom of the cloak.
Cloaks like this were hand-made and sometimes decorated with dog hair or feathers. Master weavers - always female - maintained a close relationship with the Earth mother and knowledge was passed down from women to their daughters.
The Hunterian Museum in Glasgow has an internationally important collection of early Maori cloaks, many collected on the voyages of Captain Cook. Cloaks such as this were handed down from generation to generation. They carried the power of generations of chiefs, the mana, and were regarded as having a magic of their own. These early cloaks connect spiritually and culturally to the past and the Hunterian regularly welcomes Maori experts who study the cloaks so that the important values imbued in them inform the work of contemporary weavers.
The second example is a proper armour made with densely woven coconut fibre in Kiribati (ca. 1918) and preserved at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. The low-lying coral atolls at Kiribati have few natural resources and this is an example of how the locals employ the materials available to them.
As well as being in plentiful supply, coconut plants were thought to possess special protective powers. Warriors used to solve disputes through duels and the armour was required to protect their bodies from the leathal blows that could be inflicted by the shark tooth weapons used in combat.
The third armour is the suit of the Burryman that we saw in a previous post in connection with Gareth Pugh's S/S 15 collection. This ancient ritual from the Scottish folk tradition (images courtesy of Frank Boyle) takes place every August in South Queensferry, near Edinburgh. A local man is covered from head to ankles in thousands of burrs (sticky flowerheads or seedheads of two species of burdock) that grow locally (the man impersonating the Burryman collects them for himself).
The stickiness of this natural Velcro armour doesn't allow him to walk properly, so he walks with his legs apart and arms held out, supporting them on poles decorated with flowers and helped by two attendants. As he walks around the town, the Burryman is given a drink of whisky through a straw by the people who meet him or at the pubs where he stops. The tradition probably harks back to pagan festivals of harvest and life, or to the Green Man Festival, and therefore the Burryman could be interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, regeneration and fertility.
What's interesting about these three armours is that, apart from radically transforming and physically protecting the wearers (though the Burryman has actually got to protect himself from the sticky plants by wearing several layers of clothing...), they also seem to grant them special powers that elevate them above the rest of the community.
Depending from how we wear them or from their shapes, colour and material, accessories can assume different meanings, turning into fascinating elements of the fashion masquerade. A form of decorative adornment, jewellery has a special place in the accessories category.
A highly-charged symbolic ornament in the Victorian era (1837-1901), jewellery reflected for example the aspirations and preoccupations of its owners, communicating them through the use of different materials.
Hair jewellery was for example a sentimental gift, jet jewellery a public statement of mourning, while Berlin ironwork conveyed patriotic pride. This cabinet from the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh displays a selection of very interesting pieces.
On the left side of the cabinet there are some refined examples of open weave hair pieces (dated 1830-1850), wrist cuffs, rings, brooches and necklaces.
The hair of beloved friends and relatives was transformed into wearable keepsakes, while a lock would be curled and placed into a locket. Instruction manuals also offered directions for preparing hair and plaiting it at home (the pictures don't make them justice, but the net-like beads in the second image in this post are made with hair and it would have been lovely to know more about the person who made these complex structures, though it is important to remember that intricate patterns and designs with metal mounts were not made at home, but they were created by professional craftspeople).
The centre of the cabinet includes a necklace, a brooch made in Scotland between 1860 and 1870 with pearls and hair and a diamond brooch (1904) containing hair that can be classified as mourning jewellery. Following the death of Prince Albert in 1861, Queen Victoria popularised black jet (fossilised coal) which became the material associated with mourning jewellery. The hair inside was styled as a Prince of Wales curl, using hot curling irons. The cabinet also includes a small "memento mori" ring (bottom left side of third picture in this post). Memento mori jewellery featured macabre or religious iconography. It served as a reminder of the inevitability of death and was often employed to encourage virtuous living. As time passed, mourning jewellery became more ostentatious.
Jewellery also had a patriotic value as showed by the crosses, bird brooch and cravat pins and tracery earrings and necklace (all from the early decades of the 1800s) on the right side of the cabinet. From 1813 patriotic Prussians offered precious pieces to raise money for their state's rebellion against Napoleon. In return, women were given ironwork jewellery, sometimes bearing the inscription "Gold gab ich für Eisen" (I gave gold for iron). Ironwork jewellery later on became a fashionable accessory.
The intricate lace-like necklace and bracelets on the right side of the display are instead fine examples of Silesian wirework. Iron can be made into a thin thread and woven, pleated or plaited into three-dimensional shapes. Silesian wirework jewellery celebrated the novelty and versatility of this new material known for its strength. The iron in these pieces (made in Germany between the 18th and the 19th century) was worked in such a fine way that it looked like hair or threads.
The National Museum of Scotland also offers visitors the chance to see a small exhibition of contemporary jewellery (on the ground floor) that proves modern pieces may not have the same deep meanings of some of the historical jewels in its collection, but they are equally intriguing, though for different reasons.
Minimalism can be considered as one of the themes of the display on modern jewellery. Caroline Broadhead and Nuala Jamison (C & N) created in the 1980s bespoke accessories for Jean Muir's collections. A round translucent acrylic resin necklace (that can actually be dyed in a wide range of colours - C & N reproduced this design in a variety of pastel shades, experimenting with different lengths and sizes) accompanied by rigid seamless bangles prove that minimal pieces can create striking effects.
Rigidity is also explored in their work through acrylic resin bangles with dramatic accents of silver leaf, while movement is analysed in their necklaces and earrings. The black necklace with ring beads threaded onto a strand of translucent black nylon (fifth image in this post) would have moved on the body, echoing the supple flow and movement of a classic Jean Muir garment; held together with flexible nylon wire, the graduating concentric discs of the yellow cone-shaped earrings would have also moved with the wearer.
Inspired by the Pop Art movement of the 1960s Wendy Ramshaw and David Watkins' self-assembly kits - Paper Jewels by Something Special - allowed people to purchase pieces (such as flower or butterfly brooches or pyramid earrings) that were chaeap and fun to wear.
In 2000, the duo was asked by Thames and Hudson to create a new series that resulted in the publication The Paper Jewellery Collection: Pop Out Artwear. Some of the pieces (cone and fan brooches, hair ornaments and the Egyptian and Sun-burst necklaces; sixth image in this post) were recreated for the display at the National Museum of Scotland.
In the '80s Wendy Ramshaw and David Watkins created fine metal pieces in gilded brass and dyed acrylic or using enamelled gold/silver: Watkins' “Inflection V/1, Blue-red I” necklace from 1988 (seventh image in this post) is a bold and futuristic piece that displays the artist's interest in innovative techniques such as laser cutting and computer-aided design; Ramshaw's “Ring set for Woman Sitting in a Window” has instead a strong connection with art and consists in 15 silver, blue and yellow agate rings with yellow enamel on a nickel alloy stand and was part of the series “Picasso's Ladies”, inspired by 66 portraits of the most important women in Picasso's life, while a gold and red enamel brooch also included in the display represents the Sutton Hoo treasures.
Fun and surrealism mix in Felieke van der Leest's uplifting crocheted textile and mixed media pieces such as her "Lifebuoy" bracelet (2000) that shows intricate textile techniques in which precious and semi-precious materials are combined to create wearable and quirky artworks; originally believed to have been designed byvan der Leest, the “Hug Me” Brooch, represents a cute Moomin character, and is more likely to have been created by an individual inspired by her work.
Extremely different one from the other, these pieces prove that the process of jewellery designing passes through various stages of meaning-making defined by use, material and medium, and that this meaning refers to psychological, sociological, moral and aesthetic dimensions (think about how specific pieces can signify love, acceptance, belonging, loyalty, identity and so on). Yet the best thing about jewellery remains the fact that it is in continuous evolution and that it definitely goes beyond the mere desire for self-adornment.
In yesterday's post we looked at anatomy as inspiration, touching upon the fashion and death connection. Let's continue the thread for another day by focusing on the theme of death and regeneration with a painting (from the mid-to-late 1500s) by an anonymous artist preserved in the library of the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.
The work is an anamorphic painting showing a young woman (previously thought to be Mary, Queen of Scots) and a skull. If you look at the painting from left to right, you will see the woman's head changing into a skull and therefore progressing from life to death or from death to life in a sort of arty version of Dr Who's regeneration process, if you move from right to left.
Created as a memento mori, or reminder of death, the work of art - a perfect example of anamorphic or turning picture - was cleverly composed by painting two images on alternate sides of vertical strips.
The fashion industry has currently got a strange morbid curiosity about death, something that seems to be greatly encouraged by certain fashion media outlets that mistakenly assume the death and fashion connection was developed maybe only in modern times with McQueen's dark creations. A more interesting way to maybe approach the fashion and death theme (popular since the 1800s), it's by studying medical collections. Remember, though, to pick credible and scientifically proven ones.
Wealthy people acquired objects and built up collections since the Renaissance. The reasons for collecting were different and went from curiosity to desire for knowledge, social prestige and economic gain. The collections were made up of natural specimens and man-made rarities combined together, and they were known as “cabinets of curiosity”.
In the 18th century the nature and use of the collections went through a major change. This was indeed the Age of Enlightenment and of scientific experimentation, invention and discovery. New plants and animals species were being discovered, artefacts were being brought back from voyages and explorations; innovative systems of classifications were also adopted and new subject areas like geology and archaelogy were developed.
William Hunter's collection was developed around these times. A teacher of anatomy, a clinician, obstetrician and scientific reseacher, Hunter would use rational investigative methods to study medical problems or interesting natural phenomena and, in his studies, he never relied on received wisdom or preconceptions.
He was very interested in pregancy and childbirth and his major discovery was that the blood circulation of the mother and the baby in the placenta were separate. He also studied the lymphatic vessels thoroughly which were understood to be both a drainage mechanism and part of the immune system and wrote about bone, the joints and seasonal breeding in birds.
Hunter's collecting started with the medical specimens he used for teaching and research. Highly skilled at preparing excellent medical specimens, Hunter quickly expanded his collection also thanks to the talent and the expertise of his assistants including his brother John.
Considered as the finest in Britain, the collection opened to the public in 1807 at the University of Glasgow where it was visited by many scientists and members of the public. The collected pieces encouraged young people to study medicine at the university, and medical students could go to the museum to research the specimen in detail.
You may argue that some fashion students or designers may be revolted at the idea of studying human anatomy through a real medical collection and of staring at diseased skulls showing the bony framework of a carcinoma or at jars in which ears, hearts, irises, intestines and other gruesome bits fluctuate, may be rather scary, but, in many ways, this is nearer to the real thing (and probably more inspiring) than the romanticised vision of death that many fashion media outlets are currently writing about.
Besides, not all specimen you may encounter may look like something out of a horror film, but there is a dose of (twisted) beauty about them: two specimen in Hunter's collection refer to the lymphatics of the intestines (last image in this post). Since lynphatics cannot readily be seen with the naked eye Hunter and his assistants demonstrated their existence by injecting the specimes with mercury. The descriptions accompanying these pieces on display at Glasgow's Hunterian Museum state: "Some of Hunter's injected speciments remain unsurpassed in their beauty."
William Hunter once stated, “Anatomy is the only solid foundation of medicine; it is to the physician and surgeon what geometry is to the astronomer.” Anatomy is also the human foundation of fashion. After all, the latter deals with the human body and - on a superficial and external level (as Death states in Giacomo Leopardi's Dialogue between Fashion and Death) - with the destruction and reassemblage of the human figure.
In a previous post we mentioned the elegant and highly polished sculpture "Eástre" (Hymn to the Sun, 1924) by Scottish colourist John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961), in connection with Holly Fulton's Spring/Summer 2015 collection.
Let's refocus today on the sculpture with this quick animated gif of the brass cast preserved at the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow (the Aberdeen Art Gallery owns the original one). As you may remember, the statue is a representation of the Saxon goddess of spring and a portrait of the artist's partner, dancer Margaret Morris.
Eastre is a symbolic representation of rebirth and fertility, fundamental themes for Fergusson who stated: "The head is composed entirely of sections of a sphere (to show the) effect of the sun (and its ) triumph...after the gloom of winter." The piece could therefore be the starting point for cleverly constructed pieces (the sections of a sphere can obviously lead to the creation of different shapes) inspired by the beauty of Spring.
There is currently an exhibition at Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) of 20th century paintings selected from the collection of the local museums by the artists who took part in last year's Picture Show. One of the paintings on display (that also gives the title to the exhibition) is the set design for “The Ballet of the Palette” (1942) by Josef Herman (1911-2000).
Born in Warsaw, Poland, to a Jewish working class family, Herman studied at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts and worked as graphic designer. With the rise of anti-Semitism and the start of World War II, Herman fled Poland for Belgium, setting in Glasgow in 1940. At the time, Estonian-born Jewish sculptor Benno Schotz was the Head of Sculpture and Ceramics at The Glasgow School of Art, while Herman's friend, the painter Jankel Adler from Warsaw, was also living in the city, and the three artists became quite close.
Herman was more known for celebrating in his paintings the working class and being inspired by subjects such as grape pickers, fishermen and coal miners, but, while in Glasgow and living through rather dark times, he made the sketches for "The Ballet of the Palette”. Suspended between fantasy and surrealism, the ballet was a 30 minute-long semi-surrealistic extravaganza with a story focused on a large lazy brush and a small energetic brush.
The backdrop was supposed to be an unfinished painting by Herman with his signature moon hanging in the background, while in the foreground a palette was ready to be filled with the other characters in the ballet – the colours. Each colour had its own characteristics and movements: Blue was moody and slow; Green was youthful and spring like; Pink was graceful with lots of vitality; Red was vivacious and dynamic and White was fast. Awoken by the little brush, the colours started dancing, but it was only when the big brush joined in that the stage became a frenzy of inspiration.
Performed by Morris' Celtic Ballet Club, set up by Margaret Morris, dancer, choreographer, teacher, writer and artist (and wife/muse of Scottish Colourist J.D. Fergusson), the ballet was performed 15 times in 1942, with revivals in 1944 and 1945 and was always well received.
Visitors of the GoMA exhibition will rediscover Herman's set design, his sketches for the characters' costumes (some of them - check out the costume for the Pink shade - have a dynamic quality about them that makes you think about the Italian Futurist's works) and also some pictures relating to the ballet.
Historically there has always been a tradition of artists working for the ballet or the theatre with avant-garde groups, but Herman's work is particularly interesting since it was developed in Scotland by an artist who usually focused on very different themes.
"The Ballet of the Palette" may not be that well known, but it is worth rediscovering it since it metaphorically represents a romatic story between the painter and the process, but also because its fantasy and surrealism developed in dark times are the perfect recipe to inspire us to get on with our lives, even in the bleakest of times.
Up until a few years ago fabrics were mainly considered as the main medium of expression of proper textile artists. In the last few years, though, things changed and now it is not rare to see a piece made with textiles or incorporating some fabrics made by artists who usually work with other materials.
Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz often uses textiles as her principal artistic medium to create installations that she calls “Crowds” and that feature several sculptures mainly made with burlap and depicting figures in a crowd.
Abakanowicz's installations vary in the number of figures and in the way they are depicted, sometimes they stand, walk, or sit. Shown in various installations and configurations all around the world, Abakanowicz's "Crowds" can be considered as tackling several existential issues linked with the human condition. The installations are also usually placed on the same level of the visitors, so that the inanimate sculptures mix in an uncanny way with real crowds, creating a rather unusual human choreography, a dichotomic game of two entities - humans and statues.
One of these installations will be on view during the event "Crowd and Individual" dedicated to Abakanowicz's works and organised at the Fondazione Cini on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice.
Humble burlap, a fabric characterised by a corse consistency, has usually got different applications in various industries and works pretty well in Abakanowicz's pieces.
While it provides the proper structure to the figures, it also gives the artist the chance to reference and explore several symbolic meanings. Thanks to its breathability and durability, burlap was traditionally used to make sacks and bags and also ship goods (think about coffee beans or tobacco), but it is also linked with the mortification of the flesh, since it has a corse consistency. In Abakanowicz's installations it therefore becomes a metaphor, a symbol of endurance, of persevering in adversity or withstanding hardship and stress and of doing so in a rather passive way.
"Maybe the experience of the crowd, which waits passively in line, but is ready to trample, destroy, or adore on command, like a headless creature, has become the focus of my research. What may also have attracted me to the theme was my fascination with the scale of the human body, or a desire to determine how little is needed to express the whole," Magdalena Abakanowicz stated about her interest in the theme of crowds in a press release about the event.
Magdalena Abakanowicz: Crowd and Individual, Fondazione Cini, Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 12th April - 2nd August 2015.
It is not rare to spot on contemporary runways references to the Middle Ages in the cut of coats and capes or in certain styles. Yet there is more to the Medieval times than just garments as an exhibition that will open in June at the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden will prove.
"Goud - Gevonden schatten uit de middeleeuwen" (Gold - Treasures from the Middle Ages) will take visitors back to early medieval Friesland, a province in the northwest of the Netherlands, and introduce them to the sparkling jewellery, coins and other gold artifacts excavated from the Frisian mounds.
Artificial hills that protected people and cattle against flooding caused by the high tides and river floods, the mounds (terp/terpen in Dutch, meaning "village" in Old Frisian) were made using clay, manure and household waste. Many gold pieces such as pendants and coins were found in mound excavations, that also unveiled other peculiar discoveries including the tomb of a woman from the 7th century inside the trunk of a hollow oak tree.
There will be quite a few highlights in the exhibition such as the treasure of Dronrijp, the fibula of Wijnaldum and a unique buckle shield that will be shown for the first time.
The treasure of Dronrijp will be given a prominent place in the exhibition: it consists of parts of a buckle, a pendant, gold grains and several coins.
The fibula Wijnaldum is considered as a masterpiece since it is the largest piece of jewellery inlaid with over three hundred brilliant red almandine (probably imported from India) from early medieval Netherlands and perhaps from the entire Europe.
The event will also feature the famous treasure of Wiewerd on loan from the Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. The treasure includes 220 grams of gold and consists of 39 gold pieces, including three rings, different pendants and the base plate of a fibula.
While the craftsmanship behind some of these artifacts is very inspiring, visitors should actually consider also the importance of the decorations that often hide symbolic meanings or refer to mythological stories, and ponder a bit about the significance of gold in the Frisian social context and in a hierarchical structure. People who owned a gold piece weren't just wealthy but acquired status, position and power: a warrior would for example impress his opponents with the gold decorations on his sword.
The best way to approach these events about such historical pieces is therefore to try and wonder how the study of these objects and of the material they were made of can help us gaining insight into contemporary mentality. After all, it's hard not to think about the meaning and perception of gold objects in the Middle Ages and in modern times, especially considering our society obsessed with greed, status and power, and crippled by financial crises.
"Goud - Gevonden schatten uit de middeleeuwen" will run at the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, from 6th June 2015 to 3rd January 2016.
Image credits for this post
1. Gold pendant with almandine from Cornjum, ca. 625 AD. Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; The Royal Collection Frisian Society. Photography: Erik and Petra Hesmerg.
2. Bracteaat from Achlum, late 5th - early 6th century Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; The Royal Collection Frisian Society. Photography: Erik and Petra Hesmerg.
3. Bracteaatschat Achlum, late 5th - early 6th century. Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; The Royal Collection Frisian Society. Photography: Erik and Petra Hesmerg.
4. Gilded fibula from the mound of Hegebeintum, mid-7th century, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; The Royal Collection Frisian Society. Photography: Erik and Petra Hesmerg.
5. Wijnaldum Fibula inlaid with almandine, 600 n. Chr. Museum, Leeuwarden; Collection province of Friesland. Photography: Erik and Petra Hesmerg.
6. Gold Treasures from the Fries Museum, Fries Museum Collection, Collection province of Friesland, The Royal Collection Frisian Society. Photography: Erik and Petra Hesmerg.
7. Gold Treasure of Dronrijp, mid-7th century, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; The Royal Collection Frisian Society. Photography: Erik and Petra Hesmerg.
8. Buckle shield with almandine from Wijnaldum, 600 n. Chr. Collection Fries Museum, Leeuwarden. Photography: Erik and Petra Hesmerg.
Fashion designer Hanae Mori first opened her own atelier in 1951 in Tokyo's Shinjuku district, launching in 1965 in New York her seminal “East Meets West” collection. The latter was characterised by rich and colourful Japanese patterns on Japanese silk.
The first Japanese to be accepted in 1977 to show Haute Couture in Paris by the Chambre Syndicale, Mori retired after her last high fashion presentation in July 2004. Last October a new Hanae Mori line was created by Yu Amatsu.
The designer started his career thirteen years ago and moved in 2004 to New York where he worked as executive designer/main patterner for Jen Kao and Marc Jacobs, and as costume designer for several celebrities and performers. In 2009, he launched his brand, A Degree Farenheit.
Yu Amatsu's collection for Hanae Mori - showcased during the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo - revolved around three main principles, silhouette, details and graphics
Leaving behind his formal eveningwear that had prevailed on the previous season's runway, the designer focused on wearable dresses and separates in a palette of soft and dove grays that he combined with pleasant pastel shades such as pale blue, mauve and soft yellow.
Pastels were also employed for the lacy looks, the fluid wide-legged pants and light trench coats (that were maybe more apt for a Spring/Summer collection), for the dresses in abstract geometric prints representing a stylised butterfly - the symbol of the fashion house - and the fur coats and blouses crisscrossed by Constructivist lines.
The brand currently focuses on graceful and elegant styles characterised by a good sense of balance, and developed with a contemporary and actively independent and ageless woman in mind, yet the inspiration behind this collection was mainly architectural, it came indeed from New York City’s High Line pedestrian pathway. In a way the runway progression of gray looks that turned into colourful ones could be almost a hint at the changes the pedestrian line went through.
The public park was indeed built on a historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side and it was redesigned to incorporate several plant species.
It would be interesting to ask the designer if the pastel palette in the collection was actually borrowed from the colours of the vegetation on the High Line and if the grays derived instead from black and white aerial views of the rail line (or if maybe the designer read Alan Weisman's book The World Without Us in which the author considered the High Line as an example of the reappearance of the wild in an abandoned area and was therefore making a comparison between concrete and nature).
What's for sure is that the graphic lines that criss-crossed some of the garments could represent in an abstract way the first section of the High Line that opened in 2009 and that runs from Gansevoort Street to West 20th Street, the second section that opened in 2011 and runs between West 20th and West 30th Streets and the third part, opened to the public in September 2014.
We will hopefully discover more about the designer's architectural inspirations in the next few months, what's for sure is that he certainly managed to reproduce through his clothes Hanae Mori's East meets West style, re-establishing the link that joins the iconic designer to architecture and that goes back to 1978 when Kenzo Tange designed the Hanae Mori Building.
Based in Tokyo's Omote-sando the building is considered as a striking local landmark thanks to its configuration. The structure looks indeed like a stack of reflective glass blocks that in plan form the spread wings of a butterfly - Hanae Mori's symbol.
In yesterday's post we looked at windows as inspiring architectural features. Let's continue the thread today with a brief weekend post that looks at the doors of the art studios and spaces located under the arches of the Brighton promenade.
Doors can be very symbolical as they represent a passage from one space into another, and they may lead into a space or deny entrance to it. Main doors are particularly important as, depending from when they were designed, they can even help us dating a building with their decorative patterns or ornamental motifs.
The doors included in this post can be deemed as inspiring for different reasons: in the first example in this post, the door is characterised by a set of colours arranged in the style of Mondrian. The Mondrian grid effect is emphasised by the metal structure that secures and reinforces the door.
The colour combination - pale blue and white - arranged in a neat set of stripes characterising the arch and the door in the second example belongs instead to a stereotypical nautical style.
The third example of doors can be deemed interesting because, under the same arch, there is a division of spaces with two different doors - one neatly decorated in vivid shades of tomato red and violet, the other in plain wood.
The fourth and last example provides with instant visual gratification as the bright orange, pale blue, yellow and white scheme of colours evokes the seaside, and offers the passer-by a sense of invigorating energy. Have a lovely weekend and keep your eyes open in search of interesting and inspiring doors.