COLOR PALETTE: GREEN

In 2007, after being widely commented on, the magazine InStyle defined the green dress worn by British actress Keira Knightley in a famous scene from Atonement as ‘the most iconic dress in the history of cinema’. Directed by Joe Wright and based on a novel by Ian McEwan, the film’s Oscar-nominated costume designer Jacqueline Duran was aware of the dress’s role in the relationship between the film’s two leading characters, and designed a sophisticated, seemingly simple cinematic device The dress is an emerald-green, slinky, low-cut, with a flapper drop back and thin straps. It is draped around the upper hip, has a central slit, and an overall Grecian, full-skirted silhouette. It was far and away from the rigid bourgeois style from the 1930s (the film takes place in 1935), but also a signature look from couture house Maison Paquin, which was hugely popular at the time.

Italian author Marco Belpoliti has stated that ‘green is everywhere’. Starting with The Bible, it is mentioned in the book of Genesis when describing Eden – the garden inhabited by Adam and Eve. However, primitive paintings are earthy and yellowish. ‘Cold’ colours come later. Even the rich Greek vocabulary only offers the term glaukos which can mean blue-grey but also brown and yellow. The Romans discovered something important: the pigments used to dye fabrics green were very hard to fix. Things changed for green with the rise of Innocent III (1198-1216) who, before being elected as Pope, wrote a text on vestments’ colors, defining green as a ‘median tone’.

Green ascended in Medieval times when it began to be associated with discretion, restraint, springtime and youth. However, it was also used to depict dragons, snakes and fantastic and hideous creatures. The colour has always embodied contradictions, dualities and wicked facts. Let’s consider the first edition of De animalibus insectis (1602) by Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi, which resides in the Smithsonian Institute’s Cullman Library. A key reference for entomologists, it is (in)famous for its green leather cover and cannot be touched because it is superficially treated with arsenic. An attempt to kill someone? Not at all! As confirmed by Professor Alexandra K. Newman, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Library, treating books with poison was common practice up until the twentieth century – mainly to protect them from parasites.

The union of blue and yellow, in other words green, is featured in FILA heritage several times. On May 8th 1978, Reinhold Messner scaled Mount Everest together with Peter Habeler.On the way, he wore a turtleneck sweater made of apple green yarn, an iconic choice he personally requested. In the same decade, Evonne Goolagong Cawley dominated tennis courts, wearing green pastel uniforms that made history. After many years, her legacy lived on – also from a chromatic point of view – with tennis star Kim Clijsters. Among the many looks she made famous, we are particularly fond of the bright green uniform she wore for the 2011 Australian Open.