The Other Neutral

Mango sweater
Mavi jeans (c/o)
Oak + Fort mules (similar)
Mango beret (similar)
Celine necklace
Aurate NY bracelet (c/o)
Stella & Dot earrings
Location: The Fort Garry Hotel – Winnipeg, Manitoba

For many dedicated neutral lovers, the other neutral is leopard print. While a print, it combines two satisfyingly simple shades, camel and black. It’s bold without being bright. I see the appeal. Sometimes, it even draws me in. But for me, the other neutral is, and will always be, red.

Maybe it’s because of lipstick. I don’t know for sure. I’ve gone through phases in my life when I’ve worn a red lip on the daily. During other periods, I’ve tossed most of my collection of reds and relied solely on a single nude pink lipstick – Patisserie from MAC, in case you’re curious. A rebel, or at least a contrarian, at heart, I’ve returned to red lip shades in the past year precisely because they are so impractical during a pandemic. No one sees them. They stain the inside of masks. Wearing them doesn’t make sense, so of course I can’t help myself. Whatever the reason, red is my other neutral. But it’s rare that it makes its way beyond my make-up bag and into my wardrobe.

I’m sure I’ve said it before, but for me, colour is chaos – especially in my wardrobe. Our brains have a finite capacity for good decision making on a given day. And since I need to make so many decisions at work, I don’t want to waste my good ones on trivial things like what sweater to wear with which skirt. So I stick, for the most part, to black, beige and cream clothing, with the odd pair of blue jeans and grey blazer thrown into the mix. But in the past year, for lack of anything else to do, I’ve made a couple of forays into colour. Most notable among them a blue floral dress from Sezane. (I confess – I originally wanted it in red. Still do.)

I confess that I’m not sure what exactly, aside from abject boredom, led to my occasional forays with coloured clothing. What it’s reminded me of, though, is that there are exceptions to every rule – particularly the arbitrary rules we make for ourselves. We can break them, ignore them, rewrite them and redefine them as we go along. That’s exactly what I’m doing now.

While I still love leopard on occasion, red is truly my other neutral. That doesn’t mean that it’s making its way into my closet on a regular basis – nothing much is these days, because where do I have to wear anything new? What it does mean is that I’m open to the possibility of the right red piece, at the right time, under the right red circumstances. This red turtleneck, late last year, as the holidays approached, was exactly that. And this summer, with any luck, I’ll finally get my hands on the red summer dress of my dreams, too…

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