Color has been disappearing from the world
The topic stems from a post that a number of readers sent to me a few weeks ago. It talks about a study (I can’t seem to identify the research group they referred to) that indicates that color is disappearing from the world, notably with cars and interior trends.
It didn’t take a formal study to reveal this to me. The colors I had to choose from for my car were white, black, or grey! “Ummm, do you have like a cornflower yellow, please? No?” And where did all the red cars from the 90s go?! Come back!
Reader comments
I made a one slide story about it with a quick note and then moved on with my day. But the comments started rolling in.
Here’s one:
81% of the people who responded said that they felt similarly.
Did you catch that?!
Wearing things that make you happy
81% said that they didn’t feel comfortable wearing things that made them happy! The clothes just sit there in the closet! As a hardly-famous Instagram influencer, I occasionally get stopped by people out and about to say hello (and I love it! Talk about a self-esteem booster for this still-looking-pregnant, 40 year old mom of 2!) and I’ve been privy to the things of their hearts. It’s a message that I keep hearing over and over. It usually goes something like this: “I’m 65 now and I’m finally wearing the colors that I love to wear and I thought you’d appreciate hearing this!”
Here’s what goes through my head when I hear something like this:
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- Absolutely I do want to hear this! Thanks for confiding in me!
- You go girl!
- What took so long?!?!?!
But seriously! WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR????
A new way of living with color
While Lars will not become a destination for style and fashion anytime soon, we DO intend to introduce a new way of being comfortable living with color and the things that are inside your heart. A guide of sorts.
And guess what? I don’t even care if you don’t love color! You don’t have to! If all-neutrals are the colors written on your heart, embrace it! As long as the choice is intentional, deliberate, and not determined by what you think you should be doing. That’s no way to live!
Everyone has a visual identity
And guess what else? EVERYONE has a visual identity whether they know it or not. It may sound superficial to certain people, but I contest that this visual identity is as important as the other parts of your identity. It’s what makes you you. Every object, color, pattern, line, furniture, decorative object can speak to your soul. Have you felt that before? When you stumble on an object and it SPEAKS to your soul? Surrounding yourself with those visuals, from a beautiful dress to a funky candlestick, can fill your soul just as much as beautiful written prose.
Here are some responses from our newsletter that went out this week. If you’re interested in reading more about living in color or lack of color, I wrote this post here about using beige as a default color.
New mission statement
Until now our mission has been to encourage people to make things with their hands. While we’re workshopping a new mission statement, here are some statements I’m thinking about (feel free to send in your own!):
- Get outside your comfort zone and make the life you’ve always wanted
- Embracing color
- A vibrant life is a heart fulfilled
- Tapping into the colors of your heart
- Identifying the colors of your heart and making them happen
- Making color come to life
- Color is a lifestyle
- Deliberately filling time with beautiful things
The Lars Lifestyle
In our meeting, Jenny on our team mentioned that Lars is more of a lifestyle than a series of craft projects. It’s true! We absolutely want to provide all the beautiful projects we can, but there’s more to it than that. We want to provide you with tools for living your BEST visual life. Because, once again, the things we surround ourselves with influence what we think about and the things we think about become the things written on our hearts. It’s a trickle down affair!
ANYWHOO, this is a blog post, not a novel, so I’ll stop there for now, but just know that there’s more of this in store. We are being guided by your comments and input so feel free to respond to this post (it comes directly to me!) and give me your thoughts. We will continue to incorporate it into our messaging.
I can’t wait to hear from you!
Read more
I’ve touched on some of these topics in the past. Here are a couple:
Neutral vs. default colors
Our published journal about living with color
I love “a vibrant life is a heart fulfilled” it leaves room for vibrant to be interpreted in multiple ways. Color, pattern, texture, experience, and more.
I love color. I wear color. I have a house full of color and pattern. I always love what you share because it is vibrant in many ways even if not everything is exactly what I want. It’s always inspiring.
It’s true brands seem to be more neutral these days or latch on to only a couple specific colors for a couple of years. It’s very hard to find colorful basics. Shopping vintage has been a nice way for me to put color in my wardrobe or seeking out smaller brands taking more sartorial risks with color and pattern.
Excited to see where the focus of a new mission statement takes you.
Love it! Bravo!
Brittany,
Yes, yes! Absolutely love this! I’m looking forward to being inspired by all that you and your team will share– the world needs it.
Love,
Morgan
Love this! So sad to see babies being brought into the world with these boring beige nurseries! Bad for development and bad for vibes. Thank you!!
Amen, amen, AMEN!
I follow your blog for a whole host of reasons, but one of them has always been the vibrancy and joy I feel from your creative and adventurous use of color! Colorful interiors, clothes, and crafts absolutely speak to my soul and I agree with everything you said! Something about the disappearance of color that I don’t understand is how it’s not like it requires a certain level of money or status to enjoy in your life—paint comes in every shade of the rainbow (not just white and beige!), clothes come in nearly as many, and it’s just as easy to acquire decor for your home in beautiful shades as it is to get uninspired, neutral, lifeless ones. Anyone can do it—anyone can have it in their lives—it’s just not the norm for some reason, which is why I’m excited to hear that you’re planning to focus on this more in the future.
(Related tangent—have you or your staff ever looked into finding out your colors? Like your seasons? I did a bunch of research into this out of curiosity earlier this year and it’s fascinating how wearing colors that enhance and blend with your natural coloring make you feel! Look into the TCI 12 tone method and I have a feeling you’ll go down the rabbit hole too. Their whole mission is about showing people they can wear every color of the rainbow and bring color and joy into their life and confidence into their appearance so it’s right up your alley! There’s a TCI consultant in Salt Lake I’m so tempted to go to to have mine done—they give you a fan of your colors you can take with you for the rest of your life to shop for clothes and home decor and everything and I think it would be amazing to have. Anyway!)
Just thought I’d write to let you know you have at least one more person thoroughly on board with your crusade—and happy to help shout it on the rooftops with you.
“promoting a vibrant life of color* is what came to me for your mission! ❤️💙💚💛💜
I love this! I guess for me the most intimidating thing is that adding more color feels too complicated. Like if I don’t do it right it will be awful. So choosing room wall colors that compliment the furniture and decor and etc is harder when I have no clue what I’m doing. (Also I can’t buy a $60 decorative pillow.) so maybe ideas on budget friendly color schemes for the wannabe vibrant home?
I love “ Tapping into the colors of your heart”!
As long as there are artists, there will be color. Unconscious consumers may always opt for grey floors, but there’s still a lot of us out here that have our own style and are not lusting after West Elm’s. Mwah! Ashley
You said this is not a novel, but what a great book idea to bring to life all the ways to bring color into all areas of life – like Design Mom did with creative spaces everywhere.
I think embracing a vibrant life is an excellent mission statement for Lars. Even when folks choose color, much of it is muted… after Covid, I think people are more about living how they want to— being freer to choose color. I don’t know who the arbiters of taste are that make people less willing to “risk” color (and think it may be more about cost and hassle of changing things if they don’t work out and years of decor advice saying to choose neutral upholstery)— so giving people confidence by training their eye or seeing lots of examples with explanations about why it works may allow people to give themselves permission to take a plunge into a rainbow of colors. Also remember to start where people are… if they have a neutral sofa, how do they make it more colorful?
This is a perfect new direction, although I believe this has always been here….permission to create using ALL 64 colors in the box. Thank you!
As much as I like some trends…they need to involve real color…Roygbiv or colors of the rainbow.
Black and White and Grey are not colors…they are neutrals…and when added to colors…become shades and tints! I have always embraced color in both my wardrobe and decor….color makes me happy and gives me joy!
Although my car is a metallic neutral…my car cell charger…beverage container and grocery bag organizer are very colorful!
We need to continue to support the concept of color in our World and environment!
I think that color is going away. I’m hopeful that neutrals are trend that will swing out of popularity soon!!! I’m so tired of neutrals in clothing, interior design etc. (that’s why I love you and your feed!!!!❤️)
I think this is great shift at the House that Lars Built. It is definitely needed!! People go to neutrals, especially in clothing, because they think it hides their body the best, it’s easy and they don’t understand how to figure out which colors will bring out their natural beauty. I’ve been studying this on myself and have figured out “my colors”. And I feel so much more beautiful and alive in them. (I also get a lot more compliments 😊!). If you can help educate people how to figure out in a simple way what their colors are I think that would be AMAZING!!! The resources I used to figure out my colors are “The Cardigan Empire” blog and Carol Tuttle’s “Dress Your Truth”. I am not a Carol Tuttle devotee or part of her “cult” (anyone else feel this way?) but I took from her books and website the things that worked for me and used them. Hence, I don’t follow everything she says but the knowledge gave me a good base for figuring my colors out.
Good luck with this and THANK YOU!!
I’ve thought about this post so many times since reading it! Many times I’ve seen your Inspiration for the week and thought, wow! I love that! But quickly dismiss it as something I could never do.
I really want to start being more intentional with my purchases and creativity. Am I shying away from color and if so, why? Do I like those reasons? Is there a way I could add more of what’s sparking inspiration?
I love the direction you’re thinking!
I think just giving me this awareness is a huge start!
Thank you!