A colorful way to pitch color

Color sells.

If you don’t believe me, just thumb through catalogs that promote clothing or furniture or landscaping. What catches your eye? Other than the sexy young models.

Color is the grabber. We’re drawn to it.

A recent Wall Street Journal article pointed out that the color of beach sand is a big factor in pitching coastal property in Hawaii.

The same is true for garments. Colorful clothes are de rigueur after Labor Day, marking the unofficial end of summer.

Colors signify everything. States are labeled “red” or “blue” depending on their political leanings. Communists have long been called “reds,” and Nazi storm troopers, “brownshirts.” Cowards everywhere are “yellow.”

Candidates giving speeches as we head toward

November want to be “silver-tongued.”

Color can signify content, as in “blue movies,” and weather phenomena, as in “once in a blue moon.” Tree-hugging environmentalists the world over are known as “greens.”

TRECKER

Anyone can play. Go ahead. Try your hand at it.

Jazz is “red hot.”

A power outage is a “blackout,” while a partial loss is a “brownout.”

A person who leans to the left is a “pinko.”

Moods are summarized by “feeling blue” or “seeing red.”

Music lays it out beautifully. Cy Coleman’s “Barnum” uses color to contrast the flashy (P.T. himself) with the more subdued (his wife, Charity Barnum).

Barnum:

“The colors of my life

“Are bountiful and bold

“The purple glow of indigo

“The gleam of green and gold

“The splendor of a sunrise

“The dazzle of a flame

“The glory of a rainbow

“I put ‘em all to shame.”

Charity:

“The colors of my life

“Are softer than a breeze

“The silver gray of eiderdown

“The dappled green of trees

“The amber of a wheat field

“The hazel of a seed

“The crystal of a raindrop

“Are all I’ll ever need.”

It turns out Charity had a better fix on things than theatergoers realized in the showbiz days of the 1980s. Today, bland is the in thing, at least for some items.

Houses, for instance. Realtors say white is the prevailing choice for new homes in the Naples area. They’re right. Just wander about and see the angular white buildings in every neighborhood.

The same thinking applies to autos. The most popular cars in Florida are white (25%), grey (23%), black (18%) and silver (10%). Purple checks in at 0.1%. My wife and I both have black cars. Our immediate neighbors have white ones.

While bland is better for some things, color reigns most of the time.

Take food. The Mediterranean diet, said to add years to your life, is loaded with vegetables, fruit, beans, fish and nuts – a market basket of color.

Drinks too. This year, the U.S. Tennis Open’s signature cocktail, the Honey Deuce, renamed the “Golden Deuce” – a mix of vodka, lemonade and raspberry juice – was expected to gross over $10 million. That would put it right up there with the Pink Lady, the Yellow Parrot and the Orange Gin Rickey.

To no one’s surprise, sport psychologists have a field day with color. Red is linked to aggression, hence a favorite in football and rugby uniforms. Blue calms and enhances focus, important in sports like archery and skeet shooting. Boxers and wrestlers often wear black to announce their power and strength. And so on.

It’s endless.

I could write more, but my editor has given me the red light. ¦

Dave Trecker is a chemist and retired Pfizer executive living in Florida.

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