COLOR PALETTE: ORANGE

Over the past months, most of the colours we have written about have 100, even 1000-year-old histories. This is not the case with orange: a secondary colour obtained by mixing yellow and magenta. From the knowledge we have, its birth comes from the era of global trade.
In the 16th century, Europe began importing apricots from Asia – a novel, succulent fruit that demanded to be described in new terms. These would come after the spread of oranges, the fruits that inspired the colour’s name (naaranji, from Arabic, and naranja, from Spanish). Finally, this new pale red tone, already seen in several works of art, found a new meaning. Orange became the name of the colour of the gowns worn by Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit trees, gardens, and orchards. During the Renaissance, orange was rediscovered and celebrated by a new generation of masters. In a very short time, orange – and everything connected to it – began to seduce popular culture too.

An ancient Spanish legend narrates the story of a king who was gifted an orange tree from a beautiful girl. An ambassador saw it in the castle’s garden, and asked for a branch as a gift. After the king’s refusal, the ambassador made the same request to the royal gardener, who did – and received fifty golden coins in return for the favour. The gardener decided to use the money for his daughter’s dowry to make her dream of getting married come true. On the day of her wedding, the girl wore a crown made of orange flowers. From that moment on, the zagara flower became a symbol of happiness and matrimony.

Orange is also one of the most widespread colours in modern art. Pre-Raphaelite painters such as William Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who were all active in England in the mid-nineteenth century, redefined the aesthetics of the Victorian era with their portraits of radiant females with flaming hair and dresses. On the other hand, the Impressionist movement was born with Impression, soleil levant by the French painter Claud Monet(1872) – a painting that depicts sunrise through a majestic, dynamic composition of orange brushstrokes. In 1983, the burning sky in Edvard Munch‘s The Scream expressed the desperation and bewilderment of the human condition.

This colour’s energy shines in various moments of FILA’s history too. For example, the ski suit worn by the Italian ski racer Alberto Tomba when he won the World Cup in 1995: an orange armour with carbon kevlar additions to protect and comfort the human body. Or the Netherlands’ national flag that inspired the uniform worn by Dutch long-track speed skater Sven Kramer: one of the most successful skaters in the Olympics’ history. Not to mention the 110th Anniversary Collection conceived by British stylist Katie Grand in 2021. The brand’s greatness is celebrated, among other things, by an electric orange wool sweater, a garment that pays homage to WHITE ROCK’s timeless elegance.