Sunday, October 23, 2011

College-Style

College-Style

Gray Matters

Posted: 22 Oct 2011 11:13 AM PDT

By: Emily of The University of Georgia. Follow me @emilyhovis

As of late, I have a bit of an obsession. I am head over heels in love with gray — all shades of gray, to be exact. For far too long, gray has been viewed as a drab, soulless color, reserved for rainy days and gravestones. But to me, gray is the beautiful lovechild of my favorite color scheme: black and white. When these two colors combine, magic happens, and to quote someone I’m a bit ashamed of referencing: "You get the best of both worlds."

Gray Matters in Fashion

gray clothing, grey clothing

Several gray items that my closet desperately needs.

Women wear black to have an air of sleek sophistication. Women wear white to portray innocence and youth. Many people view the battle between black and white as an eternal yin-yang of color juxtaposition. These people are wrong. Remember learning about Gregor Mendel, the Austrian friar who crossbred peas and discovered the foundations of genetics, in your last science class? Well, you may have thought that his handy dandy punnett squares were just for figuring out what color your daisies were going to be, but these genetic squares can be applied to your closet as well. When a black shirt and a white shirt find themselves alone in the washing machine, one of three things can happen:

1.    The black shirt's mysterious aura will intrigue the innocent white shirt, creating a dark shade of gray know as charcoal gray.
2.    The white shirt will be fairly resistant to the black shirt's dark, brooding sophistication and will become only slightly tainted. This lighter shade of gray is referred to as dove gray, like the chocolate but with fewer calories.
3.    In the third scenario, both the black shirt and the white shirt will be equally intrigued, and we finally get to see what happens when yin and yang put down their walls and blend. This beautiful creation is my personal favorite and is known as slate gray.

While I don’t advocate this method for obtaining gray shirts (the mall works just as well), I do aim to incorporate one of these shades of gray into my life each day. Recently, I've been sporting "Gunmetal" nail polish by Sally Hansen on my fingernails. It's a nice alternative to black nail polish, and works as an excellent transition from bright summer colors to more muted colors of fall and winter. In the winter, I live for tights, my slate gray tights from J. Crew, in particular. They go with everything: boots, dresses, coats, scarves…paleness.

After doing a pretty good job filling my closet with pieces I love, I’ve decided I need two more items for my closet to be complete. By complete, I mean that I will be able to go more than three days without raiding my closet and saying in a disparaging voice, "I have absolutely nothing to wear!". The first wardrobe/life essential is a gray coat for cold winter weather. The second is a pair of glossy gray rainboots, or as the British say, wellies. With these additions, my closet will be living proof that gray matters.

Gray Matters in Home Decor

The gray quilt and pillows on my bed.

While I relish any article of clothing in any shade of gray, I also have a special place in my heart for gray décor. My apartment is a testament to my love of gray, and fortunately, I have been able to convert my friends to the dark [gray] side. To me, every morning is a happy morning when I wake up beneath my gray quilt, and the gray IKEA fabric on my living room walls adds just the right pop of color. I love gray, but even I know too much gray can be too much of a good thing. That's why I find it best to incorporate other colors into the mix. My bedroom has a color of scheme of charcoal gray and butter yellow, and the fabric in our living room features small pops of orange. Incorporating other, lighter colors helps to offset the sometimes somber effect of gray.

The gray fabric that we used as both wall art and as pillows adds a pop of color and sophistication against white walls.

In the end, gray gets a bad rep. Black and white have long been adored the world over, and the poor gray has been treated as their ugly, step child, when in fact, gray is just the better version of these colors. Isn't it ironic that women's hearts melt at the sight of silver, but when you think about it, silver is just a more glamorous and bejeweled version of gray? So, the next time it's a cloudy day, look outside your window and think to yourself, "Isn't this a beautiful gray day?". And I don’t mean sarcastically.

Thoughts

Do you share my obsession with gray? What gray items are you dying to add to your wardrobe this fall? Comment below, email us at info@college-style.com, or tweet us @CollegeStyle12 or me @emilyhovis. We love to hear what you guys think!

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