This spring, <font color='#FF6600'>orange</font> makes a bold statement but it's not for everybody

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Lifestyle

This spring, orange makes a bold statement but it's not for everybody

Saturday, April 8, 2000

By SUSAN PHINNEY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Orange, spring's highly promoted color, is not for the timid.

It's strident, highly visible, in your face. As the Coast Guard and road workers can tell you, orange screams, "Here I am!"

The Gap shakes that blue-denim mood with orange capri pants topped with a simple cap-sleeve T-shirt.

Orange is considered an acceptable color for fruits, vegetables, Halloween decorations and fast-food outlets. But as a wearable, it's low on the fashion ladder.

Sometimes adored by brunettes with brown or hazel eyes, orange can spell disaster for pale blondes.

Orange's last big fashion fling was in the 1960s, when it was joined with fluorescent green and pink for eye-popping op-art prints.

This spring, however, designers and retailers have conspired to make orange a "must-have" fashion color.

Nordstrom, for example, has splashed orange throughout its stores nationwide -- painting interior columns, creating window displays and urging shoppers to reinvent themselves -- presumably wearing orange.

Gina Tovar, a product execution manager at Nordstrom, says orange was chosen for a spring theme because it was forecast by some advisers, and because buyers and merchandisers had seen it in the markets.

In lay language, that means there was enough orange merchandise available to support a storewide promotion -- from menswear to cosmetics.

Fabrice shoes, from Nine West, have marmalade-tone skins enhanced by prints, while the linings sport an equally flashy but opposing hue.

Orange reptile prints, orange with black zebra stripes, solid orange for pants, jackets, shoes and bags -- all are hanging around this season. No magazine or catalog is complete without it.

Cosmetic companies have joined the fan club with a huge selection of orange shades for lips, nails and cheeks.

Image consultant Audrey Beaulac says people in this part of the country tend to favor cool, blue-based colors. Perhaps that's why they have such a visceral reaction to orange. Her clients say either "It's too loud!" or "I love it!"

Beaulac, a green-eyed brunette, credits Nordstrom with being "very brave" to use it. "I've always loved orange. It's a great color on me." But for those who don't have an orange crush, she recommends an orange with pink or coral overtones. Or they can wear orange low on the body, as an accent color or accessory.

Leatrice Eiseman, Bainbridge-based color consultant and author of "Colors for Your Every Mood," (Capital Books, 176 pages, $29.95), says oranges have gotten prettier in the past few years. That means they've moved away from fruit and Popsicle hues to softer, more wearable shades.

Eiseman attributes this change to the Cuban, Latin American and Tuscan influences that are affecting apparel and home fashions.

An itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie orange bikini by Escada Sport.

And she says the public is more open to color, more willing to experiment. Thanks to self-tanning products (to make skin more compatible with orange) and a wide range of orange tones in apparel and makeup, orange can be worn by almost anyone.

"Orange can make a wardrobe look new and fresh. The timing is right," Eiseman says.

For those who don't want anything to do with a color that brings to mind Anita Bryant, O.J. Simpson, plump fruits and big round pumpkins, there's always pink -- another popular color this spring.

Mary Gottschalk, style writer for the San Jose Mercury News, says "I know orange is out there, but pink is bigger, more popular."

It's also more flattering and easier to wear. "You can find a shade that works with any skin tone," says this California blonde with pale, pale skin.

P-I Reporter Susan Phinney can be reached at 206-448-8397 or susanphinney@seattle-pi.com