by Anne Gabriel
“I notice that you always wear navy blue. I never look good in navy blue. It’s not my color,” I said.
“It lets me fit in when I’m talking to people with money. It’s the color of entry,” they said.
I’ve thought about this interaction off and on for the past several years. How is it that a color, this color, has so much weight behind it? I mean, I know that different colors evoke different thoughts, emotions, and subconscious reactions in people, that’s why red and yellow are often used in fast food establishments. But other colors have a “cultural” weight that signal a greater number of intricate messages than mere words can. One of those colors is navy blue.
I used to live next door to an upper class family from Spain. They were well educated, drove only BMW’s, sent their child to private school and the wife, with her bleached blonde tresses and steel blue eyes, would wear nothing other than navy blue and white.
Navy blue, its name originating from the dark blue, almost black, color of the uniforms of 19th Century British Royal Naval Officers. Navy blue, the color prolifically used in yachts and yacht clubs, and neck scarves worn by ladies who lunch at these clubs. I can understand the connection of the officer class co-mingling with the upper echelons of society and the color then percolating through these cultural stations and subsequently owned and adopted as a non-verbal signal among the elite in society, at least those tasteful enough to not be caught regularly in black, how gauche.
But, then why is it that navy blue is also the color adopted by working class tradesmen? It is the adopted color of plumbers, mechanics, and delivery persons. Very rarely will you find a tradesman in black, but navy blue? Nearly every single one. Not as a signal of the upper elite, but possibly as a signal of the tradesman elite. To be trusted to enter your home. Navy blue. To be trusted as an honest tradesman and not a charlatan, navy blue. To be trusted for quality workmanship, navy blue.
Navy blue is a color that bridges tradesman and the upper 1% of society, just as it does on a yacht. I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised.
Image: French Sailor 1880s