Kassia St. Clair [00:01:31]: It really, really is my pleasure. All right, so let's get in it.  

Sue Wadden [00:01:35]: When did you first realize color had stories to tell? Are you, is color in your background or tell us about who you are?  

Kassia St. Clair [00:01:43]: Sure. So color is a little bit in my background. My dad was in the army, so maybe universal khaki would be his color. But my mother was a florist and so I grew up in London and I went to day school and at the end of each day I would go back home via her flower shop and I'd sit in the shop while she shut up for the, for the evening. And to sort of occupy me, I was often given kind of the blooms that hadn't quite made it into the bouquets that day. And I would sort of occupy myself by making little posies. And we always had fresh flowers around the house. My mother had that artistic side and so I think I was sort of used to playing with color and interested in color and noticing color from quite a young age.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:02:27]: But then when it comes to the stories and the history that came later, I did history At a level which is sort of the. I'm not too sure what the American equivalent is, but it's kind of your final grades before you go to university. And then I also studied history at university in the uk, first at undergrad and then at postgrad. And the particular subject that I studied, what I was looking at was women's dress in the long 18th century in London. And color comes up a lot. You're thinking about, you know, a lot of the research was looking at diaries or letters or newspapers or magazine articles about what people were wearing, what they were intending to wear, how other people looked, how people were perceived. And color comes into that. You know, the whole time people are talking about the cloth that they want to buy for a particular outfit or what so and so wore.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:03:24]: And what I noticed, and what really intrigued me was that there was a kind of parallel language of color. They were using color terms. You know, I'm an English speaker, I live in London. These are people who, who live in London who are English speakers and yet they are using color terms, some of which were familiar, but some of which weren't. They were. They were using color terms that had gone out of. You know, had become extinct in that timeframe. And I found that really interesting.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:03:52]: And I also found it really fascinating that sometimes people were writing about a colour, you know, it was cropping up a lot day after day after day, you know, at the time, and then would suddenly, a few months later, there'd be no more mention of this colour. And I just found that really intriguing that there were these short, sharp trends that people were naming colour after contemporary novels or after battles or after people who, they. They knew who they'd first seen wearing a particular shade and that. That clearly these colors were disappearing over time, that they were no longer part of our color lexicon. And I, I found that idea really intriguing and it stuck with me. And when I went to. Into journalism, I decided that I wanted to write a color. A column about colors.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:04:41]: And. And that's where the. The sort of the germ for the book was.  

Sue Wadden [00:04:45]: So then it. That's what you did next. After university you went. You started writing as a journalist?  

Kassia St. Clair [00:04:52]: Yes. So I. I started working for magazines. I worked for a few interiors magazines, the World of Interiors in the UK and House and Garden and then.  

Sue Wadden [00:05:00]: Iconic. Yes, great.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:05:02]: And then I worked for the Economist in the Books and arts section. And it was while I was working at the. As part of the Economist that I pitched the idea for a column about colour to Elle Decoration and they accepted it and then I'd only been writing it for a relatively short time, about six months. So only about six colors or maybe nine colors, something like that. And then the editor was like, oh, we really like your column, but we're thinking of reorganizing the magazine and we're not too sure if your. If your color column's going to make it. And I was devastated. And so I really wanted to keep going.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:05:38]: So I pitched the idea as a book and in actual fact, the magazines did get reorganized, but my color column made it through and carried on. But by that time I already had a contract for a book. And then away I went, wow.  

Sue Wadden [00:05:52]: I mean, it's been explosive since then. So I think that was like 2016, right, when that book came out.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:05:57]: Yes. So the book came out in the UK in 2016 and I think in the US the following year, 2017.  

Sue Wadden [00:06:02]: Right. So I remember grabbing it. But then you've had a prolific years since then. So we went from the Secret Lives of Color, which was amazing, and then you went to the Golden Thread, which was obviously like this idea of how fabric and color sort of merged together. Is that fair to say?  

Kassia St. Clair [00:06:20]: Yeah, so I'd say both books, both the color book and the Golden Thread came out of my, you know, my sort of areas of study at university. The sequeliser color is obviously about colors and different shades and pigments and hues, while the Golden Thread is about textiles. So where they come from, why they matter and. And how we sort of need to perceive them more as a technology. And so it covered in a similar way to the Secret Lives of Color. It was quite sort of episodic. And I looked at, you know, various different stories. So what how Vikings made the sails for their ships, for example, or how the Apollo 11 spacesuits were made.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:06:59]: And I use these kind of particular stories to illustrate kind of broader truths about textiles and textile history. I love it.  

Sue Wadden [00:07:07]: So I have not read that book, so I'm gonna add that to my list. But then you moved. This is just what we're kind of discussing, Kassia's bibliography. So then you moved to a book about Liberty of London. Right. So that's more like print and pattern. Right. So there's this beautiful evolution.  

Sue Wadden [00:07:22]: So talk a little bit about that book.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:07:24]: I think my publishers would wish that that was actually my bibliography, but there was actually a book in the middle which was a bit of a sharp left hand turn, as it were. So after the Secret Lies of Color and the Golden Thread, I wrote a book about a car journey that took place in 19o called the race to the Future. And it was similar to the Golden Thread in that it was a. It was a little bit about technology. So it was about the. The kind of the origins of the car and where the car came from and how much the car has changed our world. But my publishers were totally dumbfounded. They were like, hey, your.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:07:54]: Your. Your color and textiles, and now you want to do cars. This. You know, I think you're. You're. I'm not too sure if you can take your. Your. Your.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:08:00]: Your readership with you. And I. I had faith. I thought that people who were really interested in. In the world around them, whether it was colors or textiles or design or technology, I thought they'd come with me for cars. So I wrote that, and then I sort of returned to kind of my home turf with the Liberty book.  

Sue Wadden [00:08:20]: That's fascinating. So we'll talk about that. Did you talk about color at all in the transportation book, in the auto book? Because there's a legacy of color there too.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:08:29]: Absolutely. So there's lots of interesting sort of colorful nuggets when it comes to racing. So things like British racing green, for example, and all those kind of things. But actually, the idea for. I first heard about this incredible journey. It's a true story. This 1907 race from Peking, now Beijing, to Paris, overland through Russia. I heard about that story while I was researching the color book, and I was completely fascinated by it.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:08:59]: I couldn't believe that I hadn't heard about it before. And it was so much earlier than you imagine a journey like that would be possible. The cars only invented really in the 1880s and is really a very basic technology in the. In the 1890s and going into the. The 1900s. And even in 1907, it. People were very skeptical that cars were going to be a big part of transportation history. The.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:09:27]: The economist in that very year basically said, okay, the idea we've had. We've had a go at cars. The idea has failed. Clearly the horse is, you know, long live the horse, essentially. So it really wasn't. Now it seems like, so obvious that the car and, you know, motor engines were destined for victory. But that isn't. Interestingly, that isn't how it seemed to contemporaries.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:09:48]: But this race was one of the things that helped persuade the world that cars really could go anywhere because it was believed completely impossible before they started. And then in the act of doing this journey, they proved it was possible.  

Sue Wadden [00:10:05]: And so were those things independent of each other, or was that part of this quest, right, this mission of this transcontinental race was to show that this is the future.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:10:14]: Yeah. So it was sort of, you know, that the. It was proposed by a French newspaper. And, you know, their stated aims for this journey was that it should prove that the viability and the indomible spirit of the automobile and how. How much the car still had to offer people. And it was sort of conceived as an idea of convincing people, but also, you know, it was a really canny marketing campaign for the newspaper itself because once you've got people hooked on the story, they're going to be coming back day after day to see where the cars are at any one time. And the newspaper embedded journalists with the drivers. And so the newspaper and the.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:10:57]: The route followed the telegraph wires, which was the sort of the most immediate communication technology of the time. And so the journalists were sending back reports every time they reached a telegraph office, they'd, you know, send off a story. And then that was being put not only into Le Matin, which was the French newspaper that had the idea, but also, you know, globally. There's, you know, you can see reports about this race in everywhere from, you know, Ohio to Hawaii to Sydney, Australia, Russia, Japan. It was. It was a global story.  

Sue Wadden [00:11:29]: That is absolutely fascinating. Well, I will obviously have to pick that one up too, because my, my father was in the automotive industry for, like, 55 years, so I feel like that runs through my veins as well. So I've been fascinated. And then. Well, so what are you working on now? I know there's a book set to come out here in September that's also going to be beautiful.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:11:47]: Yeah. So there's a. There's a. A few projects. So there's the. The Liberty book, which has come out, you know, fairly recently in, in the UK and, and the US I'm working on an update of an updated edition of the Secret Lives of Color. So that's coming out very shortly, and that I've added another 25 colors and I've expanded the introduction and I've added a few other little sections as well. And then I'm also working on a new book that I'm sort of working on the Pitch at the moment.  

Sue Wadden [00:12:17]: Oh, this is awesome news. Well, you have been very busy. And I think one of the things that I liked so much about your writing style is that it's not just telling a story. It's not just narrative. You feel like you're like, it's juicy gossip. Like it's sort of the insider insight into these. The this history, but in such a way that's really, really like a modern interpretation. So do you find that that has been a good approach to how people sort of consume your books and take in this information?  

Kassia St. Clair [00:12:50]: Yeah. So I think it's, you know, there's almost no way to talk about writing without at some point sounding horrendously pretentious. But I feel like it is my job as a writer to. I want to talk to a very general reader. So the reader may, you know, they may not be the kind of person who thinks, you know, who gets up every day and just wants to read another history book. They may have come to color through their job. They may be in design. They may be an interior designer.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:13:17]: They may be an architect. They may just have a. They may be a kind of, you know, an amateur artist, for example. So I don't want to assume too much knowledge, and I don't want to put people off by using lots of terms that they might not understand or immediately know. So that was really important to me, that I needed to take the reader, you know, basically meet them where they are and then bring them with me. And that's good, you know, that that's sort of where I'm comfortable writing as well, because I'm not the world's greatest expert. I'm a. I'm a generalist, too.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:13:54]: You know, I've written books about color and textiles and a car race that took place in 1907. And I'm well aware that there are. Who might spend their entire careers just investigating one color or, you know, one decade of textile history. And that could, you know, they will know everything there is to know about that one thing. And I can't compete with that. What I can do is try and do my, you know, try and do my best to represent the, you know, the most recent research and the most recent knowledge, but to write about it in such a way that it brings in, you know, kind of almost any. Any reader. And what I try and what I try and do is that make sure that everything that I write is packed full of the kind of things that you'd want.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:14:42]: Like if you were sitting on a train or on a bus or, you know, reading the book next to a friend, you'd want to kind of nudge them and say, oh, my goodness, did you know that this is the kind of information that you want to share and that I hope that will stick with people because it will kind of be relevant to their everyday lives? You know, often I write about everyday things like cars like textiles, like colors. And so these are things that you're. You're interacting with every single day. But I want to pull out the most fascinating things that I can about these everyday things and then tell it in such a way that it sticks with people and that people want to share it.  

Sue Wadden [00:15:18]: I think that's very well said. That's one of my favorite things about the book that I read, Secret Lives of Color, is it's. These are everyday topics, but you. You manage to sort of spin this story that people will quickly consume. It doesn't take a long time. It's not a huge book. I. I mean, I've read art history books that take months, and, you know, that's a whole other whole nother topic.  

Sue Wadden [00:15:38]: But you do such a nice way in, like, weaving this storytelling into this history. It's just wonderful. So, you know, props to you for making. For making it so fun for the reader. And along those lines, like, how far have you had to go to find a good story? I mean, color history, it's pretty niche. There's not a ton of information out there. So do you have any good anecdotes about one color in particular or something about design or anything you can think of?  

Kassia St. Clair [00:16:06]: Sure. So color's a funny one because it's both obscure, but it's also vast. You know, it's the whole of history. You can look at, you know, the earliest archaeological evidence, and there'll probably be mentions in there of. Of red ochre being sprinkled on almost any grave site in almost any continent throughout prehistory. So there's that, but it's also current. We're looking at, you know, new legislation coming in that. Or new evidence that comes in that implicates certain pigments that we use or ingredients in material.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:16:41]: So, you know, titanium dioxide, for example, it's really, really common. And there are concerns that it's, you know, there are concerns about its toxicity, you know, when it's consumed kind of as a food. But it really is everywhere at this point. So. And legislation is constantly being updated to protect consumers, as it should be. And. And that means that scientists are constantly having to. To stay one step ahead, and color companies are constantly having to stay one step ahead.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:17:08]: And so you really. You end up, you know, this. It's vast. And so you end up going where you think the best information will be. But also you find yourself in some really odd places and having some very odd conversations. So you'll be talking to an archaeologist about the use of urine in ancient dyes. One day. And then the next you might be talking to a scientist who's determined to find a new commercial red pigment that he hopes could make, you know, billions, billions of dollars.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:17:40]: So it's a very, it's a very vast topic and also kind of very specific and with lots of kind of niche offshoots. But I quite enjoy that as a writer. It means that you're never going to get bored and hopefully you're never going to bore your reader. But I think the frustrating thing sometimes is that there might be a color that you think is really beautiful or that has a wonderful name, a really gorgeous name, and you start investigating it and you start researching it and you just can't find a good story. You can't find a way of, of pulling it all together so that it's, you know, that it's convincing and going to have all those, those elements that I really want each of each of the, the extracts to have and then you kind of have to abandon it. And that's really devastating.  

Sue Wadden [00:18:26]: Oh, so like, what's a, do you have an example that you could share of a color that just didn't make the cut?  

Kassia St. Clair [00:18:31]: So I think Glaucus, which I think is a beautiful. Well, it's kind of, it's kind of a weird, a weird sounding color name. So I think Glaucus. I was, I really wanted to get in. I just, I just couldn't find something. I couldn't find a.  

Sue Wadden [00:18:43]: Is that like a green, like a muddy earthen green?  

Kassia St. Clair [00:18:47]: Kind of like a. Yeah, kind of a, kind of misty color, kind of a grayish greenish blue. Okay. Yeah. Oh, okay. That was quite a, that was a frustrating one. Luckily, with the, with the book, I have this sort of, at the, at the back I have a kind of an index of other interesting colors. So they're not full entries, but they're just a very small color sample and then a one, a one liner about the color.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:19:11]: And so anything that didn't make the kind of cut for a big extract, I could then put in the, in the, in the kind of expanded index. So yes, quite a lot of the, the, the flower color names and there's lots of purple ones. So you know, the, the lavenders and the heliotropes and things like that. You know, there were quite a few of those that were, were on the long list and then didn't make the short list.  

Sue Wadden [00:19:36]: Okay, I'm gonna keep going because I have a million questions and I don't wanna keep you here for five hours. So how did you, my team has asked me to ask you this. You know, where did you start your research? Like, we've all, we've all got a million books, but was there any like one place that you went that was just kind of spectacular?  

Kassia St. Clair [00:19:55]: So I loved doing research at the V and A. So the Va. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has a. Has a great library with all sorts of resources. But they had really beautiful fashion magazines from the 18th century. Sort of, you know, not they have the hard copies, but I was looking at the kind of. The microfiche which is now sort of a really ancient technology, but it's basically where some poor soul went and like photographed film page.  

Sue Wadden [00:20:22]: Yes.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:20:23]: And then, and then you kind of flick through and it's very arduous. And it's the kind of technology now that they kind of sneak into something like Stranger Things to make it seem really old and retro. Retro, which is depressing from. From my point of view. From my point of view.  

Sue Wadden [00:20:38]: But.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:20:38]: But yeah, so I, I did a bit of that and I actually had to do quite a lot of microfiche research for the Race to the future. Funny enough as well, I ended up in Hong Kong in the university library in Hong Kong in a freezing cold room because not only did they had microfiche, they also had various other types of, of archival film which is not stable at room temperature. They're afraid it's going to burst into flame. So they kept the room. I mean it was basically like a fridge, but because it was Hong Kong and I'd been expecting to kind of work in, you know, normal Hong Kong temperatures and I hadn't really, I stupidly not really thought about how cold they would keep the room. I just sat there for hours on end, just my teeth chattering, trying to do my research and then kind of like going outside, warming up for 10 minutes and then going back in. So that was more for me, that was a learning experience and you know, other interesting places. So I met when I was writing the Golden Thread, one of the chapters is about spider silk.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:21:39]: And I went. So I went to two weird places for that. One of the places I went was to London Zoo because there's a particular spider that's from native to Madagascar that naturally spins golden yellowy gold silk, you know, so spider webs are just naturally this yellow gold colour. Not too dissimilar actually from the color of my walls in my office. And so I went to London Zoo to meet some of these spiders and the zoologists there were convinced I really loved spiders. And I was like, no, I just wanted to see it in the flesh as it was. I don't want to go anywhere near it. And they just kept on huddling me closer and wanting to take photographs.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:22:17]: And I was like, oh, this is awful. These spiders are massive and I don't want to go anywhere near it. But they would just really convinced they wanted me to get a good photo with the spider. So, so that was funny. And then I also met a. A kind of spider expert in. At Oxford University who kind of on one of the. The roofs of one of the colleges had sort of built this kind of like spider sanctuary.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:22:45]: Spider paradise. I don't know what you would call them. I was going to call it an aquarium, but. But not. But anyway, it was, it was, it was terrifying again. And he was like, very proudly showing me the spiders. And I was like, I. I want nothing more than to get off this roof.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:23:01]: But he was very passionate and I admired his passion.  

Sue Wadden [00:23:05]: That is, I would not have. I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have gone there. You're right. That is pretty unique in the history of color research. That's awesome. Thanks for doing it so I don't have to be right. Well, so then if we bring it to today, clearly there's social media and digital ecosystems, and we're seeing color all the time.  

Sue Wadden [00:23:26]: So from your historical perspective, is this kind of how you have framed up the idea that you're a cultural historian? Because I think you kind of speak to that as well. Like, what's going on today? Can you talk about that?  

Kassia St. Clair [00:23:39]: Sure. It's a really interesting one. I think, you know, the. We have such a. We have such a very different access to color now. You know, as you say, social media, digital photography, all the rest of it, but our ideas of what colors and that, you know, that impacts our idea of what color means and how precious it is. And so I think, you know, for me it felt very natural calling myself a color historian. And I didn't question it too much.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:24:08]: And then I was having a. Talking to someone about it, and they were like, but what is it that makes you a cultural historian? I was like, oh, it's a really, you know, good question. And I went away and I, I got this book that's all about cultural history and, and what, you know, defines cultural history. The book essentially says, you know, you decide it's cultural history because you're, you know, because.  

Sue Wadden [00:24:29]: Deciding it.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:24:30]: You're essentially deciding it and you're, you're writing about cultures, and almost anything can be cultures or Culture.  

Sue Wadden [00:24:37]: Exactly.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:24:37]: But you know, you're sort of demarcating, you're kind of choosing your own territory. For me, because it's not just about the technology of creating the color, although it can be that. It's not just about finding the ingredients or trading the ingredients. It's about our ideas and the way these have impacted. So it's about so much. And I think cultural history allows for that kind of breadth. It allows for you to kind of talk about the economics, it allows you to talk about the emotions and the feelings and it allows you to talk about so much. But also it places an importance, which I think is really key on the impact that color is having on people and the way people think and feel and interact with one another.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:25:23]: And I think that is particularly key with color.  

Sue Wadden [00:25:26]: I think so too. I think that's how I would categorize it. Just in my mind when I was thinking about what I wanted to talk to you about. It's really just documentation. Right. You're paying attention to this, you know, one thread that's going on through, you know, thousands of years and you're paying attention to it. So you're shining this spotlight on these stories and this legacy of color which I think you've just done in such a unique and interesting way. But it does have like there are, you know, color is a big topic, but there's so many layers to it.  

Sue Wadden [00:25:55]: So you don't. I don't think you get too much into the sort of psychology of color. And I think that's your perspective is interesting because there are a lot of books and there's a lot of information about how humans interact with color at the psychological level, the neuro aesthetic level, all those things. And your take on it was a little more of like documenting what this means. So again, I can't say it enough. For those that love color, check out this book. Put it in your library. It's great to have.  

Sue Wadden [00:26:23]: So what's your favorite color? I have to ask, is that. Does everybody ask you that? I have to ask.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:26:29]: Sure. And it's a very difficult one because the truth is that I spend so much of my time looking at color that I'm quite inconstant. I often have a sort of a different favourite and I, you know, I get bored with colors sometimes or I'm. Or I get really sort of grabbed by a new one. But I do get asked that question a lot. And the answer that I give it is truthful, is I usually say ultramarine because that is this, you know, this Beautiful shade of blue.  

Sue Wadden [00:26:56]: And.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:26:57]: And it means a lot to me personally, because when I was sort of pitching the idea for the book, that was the story that I chose to take to the publishers to try and persuade them that this was a book worth publishing and these were stories worth telling. And I felt that the story of ultramarine, which is this beautiful blue made out of lapis lazuli, semi precious stone that has been mined, the vast majority of it is mined in Afghanistan and then makes its way through the, you know, the Silk roads and other trade routes to Europe. And in Europe, it becomes the color of the Virgin Mary and really completely changes European attitudes towards the color blue. And so for me, this color just really kind of crystallized what it was that I wanted to do with the entire book and brought out so many of the sort of the key themes, you know, the idea of power and color, the idea of wealth and color, scarcity, trade, you know, processing of changing and processing of ideas and. And religion. And so that. That is the. The color that kind of encapsulates why I decided to write this book and why it mattered so much to me.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:28:11]: And, and. And, you know, moreover, it's just a really beautiful color.  

Sue Wadden [00:28:15]: It's a really beautiful color. Do you find? So, you know, I. For those that know me, I. I paint all the time because I get really tired of a color, so I need, like, a palette cleanser, which is why I'm in my home now, and I just needed a white. I, like, needed to separate myself from what it was before, which is a rich green. And so I think it's fascinating when you spend so much time with color, sometimes in your personal space, you just need it to be quiet. Right. And.  

Sue Wadden [00:28:40]: And not. Not living color. But I love your yellow. How would you describe the yellow behind you?  

Kassia St. Clair [00:28:44]: It's funny. On the screen it looks quite lemony, but it's actually a lot more kind of actually what is. You know, butter yellow is everywhere at the moment, and often butter yellow is not actually a buttery yellow. It's much paler. But this is really kind of quite a buttery yellow. It's kind of, you know, pat of. Pat of butter, you know, Kerrygold, it's not so far away from that.  

Sue Wadden [00:29:06]: I love it. It looks beautiful. So what is your take on modern color trends? Like, do you have a perspective on that? You know, we, we as a. As a coatings manufacturer, we talk about color all the time, and mostly it's just to inspire people when left to their own devices. Human nature is just. When there's uncertainty. You just go with a white because it's hard to make a decision and people get very angsty when trying to pick a color. So what's your take on how people market color? Do you have a perspective on that? Do you find it enjoyable and fun to see how interpretations come to life? Just curious.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:29:43]: Absolutely. Although I think something that has really been driven home to me in the last five years is, you know, exactly what you're talking about, that anxiety that, that, you know, how, how intertwined color and anxiety are. It's something that I noticed, you know, during COVID you know, when everyone. What they wanted. You know, obviously I'm. People contact me generally when they want to talk about, about color and what they wanted from me was either very uplifting colors like yellows, which is not something that people were talking to me before at all, but also, you know, whites and neutrals. And they, they, people just wanted safety, calm. They didn't want to have to make a decision.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:30:24]: And it was all about anxiety. And I feel like we're living at the moment in a very anxious time. We're anxious about technology, we're anxious about our jobs and we're anxious about politics. And, you know, that is the kind of the overriding thing. And some people choose color as an escape, some people choose to sort of dive into, to lush colour as a way of escaping. But I think many more people want to sort of turn the, turn the, you know, chromatic volume down and go somewhere where there's, there's, there's less color and generally towards the kind of more neutral, pale end of the spectrum. Because that, it just seems to feel culturally restful and that, that has been the case for quite some time that we've thought about sort of pale neutrals as restful.  

Sue Wadden [00:31:19]: Yes. So that's. I'm going to ask you a little bit about our color of the year, which is a khaki, and I want to hear your take on khaki from almost like a color story, but also into the world of fabric, because that's a fascinating connection. But we do find that in times of, you know, it's pretty chaotic out there, that, that colors like this really do come to the forefront versus when things are great colors, much more lively, much more bold. People tend to play around with color. There's that risk averse and, and again, it will change. Covid changed things significantly. I don't know about it in the UK, but in the US from 2010 to 2020, we were very focused on Grayson.  

Sue Wadden [00:31:59]: That was like this big macro trend in design. And it was everywhere. It was gray and white and some variation on that theme. And it was, for me, like I was losing it. It was like time to, to, to go into something else and then covet, hit. And it was then all about nature and how do we bring the outside in. And so that really, really translated to blues and greens here in the U.S. i don't, I don't know if it's the same in the uk.  

Sue Wadden [00:32:22]: I do feel like Europe is much more adventurous when it comes to color, and I envy that. But here, I think green is the color of our decade in all its different variations. And for those that don't know, green has a million different combinations. There's so many different greens out there in the world. It's a really great color family. And so it's been fascinating to see and now as we move into the second part, second half of this decade, where color is going to go. So can you talk? Do you do any like, forecast thinking or are you just really. This is about the history of color.  

Sue Wadden [00:32:55]: Do you think about where color is going, like maybe related to technology A little bit.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:33:00]: So I've spoken about kind of the future of the color as it pertains to more people going more digital. Because at the moment, we think that color is something that can usually be translated physically, whether you apply it to your walls or you apply it to your clothes or whatever else it is you're applying color to paper, for example, book cover. But in the digital realm, the worst in a digital realm, some of those limitations. There are limitations with physical color that you don't necessarily have in digital color. So you can have, you know, you can create the illusion of, or you can create in digital spheres very, very glossy colors or very iridescent colors that can then be worn, for example. And it's very difficult to create and very expensive to create iridescent, glossy clothes and probably not very comfortable for the wearer. You're not going to get like iridescent, glossy sweatpants anytime soon. But digitally you can, that, that there's nothing stopping you.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:34:06]: You can create the illusion of, you know, so the, some of the constraints that we have around physical color don't exist digitally. And I think that's quite exciting for people and could have quite big impact in the way that we think about particularly sort of surface reflection and color, because how light and reflective a color is really has a huge impact. The other thing that I've been talking about for a while, and if I keep on talking about it sooner or later, I'm sure I'll be right. Is that in architecture, we've been using so much glass for such a long time and we've really sort of emphasized light. And I feel like because we've done so much to bring light in, we no longer think about it as precious because we're sort of. It's everywhere. Everywhere has massive windows, you know, offices have massive windows. Light, light, light, light, light.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:35:02]: And I think I'm really interested. I've seen a few kind of examples, particularly in religious spaces where they've gone the opposite way. You maybe enter into a very, very dark space with no natural light and then, you know, and then light is used as a kind of more as a punctuation point. It isn't omnipresent, it's. It's special, it's reserved and it's kind of reconnecting people to the wonder of light and color. And I think that's really interesting from an architectural perspective and from a color perspective, obviously, you know, there's. There's very little or there's a lot less colour without light.  

Sue Wadden [00:35:40]: That is fascinating. I haven't thought about it that way, but you read reports, you know, on the hit on like, you know, future thinking, what's color gonna look like in 2030, 20, 35? And, you know, I can't tell you how many reports I've read that you can shoot light onto a white wall and then it can become any color that you want it to be. So ergor, you would never need to buy a pigmented paint. You could just buy, you know, a neutral and then change it based on the. What you're feeling that day. And I don't know that that applies. I think there's personalization in selecting a color and putting it up in your space that you lose if it just can become anything all at once, everywhere to your point about light.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:36:21]: So it's not the same, it's not.  

Sue Wadden [00:36:23]: The same, it's not the same. And I think that's what's going to make us human. I was also reading a report and it's a topic that we're talking about on my team, like the sea of sameness. So as everything becomes AI driven and perfect, like the idea of perfection is just everyone's going to have a perfect statement and a perfect email and a perfect, perfect, perfect space. You know, what is authenticity really look like? And I think it'll be the blemished. The things that like, do have a crack that showing the mark of a human and color is a part of that as well. So I think there's going to be a lot of interesting conversations to be had in the next 15 years about where we're going as humans. So that's a topic for another day.  

Sue Wadden [00:37:02]: We're not going to cover that now, but it's, it's fascinating to me. So, you know, we'll see. So my one, my one last question is our color of the year is a beautiful khaki. It's called universal khaki and it sits sort of in the middle of the hue range. Not too dark, not too light. But tell me about what you know about khaki because I. It's a favorite color of us, of, of ours. We haven't really seen it in the United States probably in about, well, since the 90s.  

Sue Wadden [00:37:31]: Keki was really big in the 90s as a neutral, and then it made its way to beige and then gray and now it's reemerging as an important color. So tell our listeners what you know about khaki.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:37:43]: Well, I mean, it will probably surprise no one to hear that it's a military color and that was its origin too. So, you know, in the 19th century, most armies wore very bright colors, really sort of standout colors. You know, British red coats being, you know, the kind of classic example. But you know, most armies had this. And the reason for this is because you need to be able to identify very quickly friend and foe on the battlefield. And when you have very old fashioned guns, they're putting out a lot of smoke and so visibility is poor. You want to be able to identify big blocks of color so that you know where you're going so that you know how to orientate yourself on the battlefield. But then this starts changing.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:38:31]: Gun technology changes. Guns become a lot more accurate and suddenly standing out very vividly against the landscape is a lot less of a good idea. The more accurate guns become and the less smoke they're putting out, actually, the less visible you want to be as an individual, the less solid your, you want your outline to be. And the story goes that one of the, the first kind of places where people really became aware of the, of the growing accuracy of, of guns and the, the limitations of having very, very bright, you know, eye catching uniforms was the British army in India. And so what, you know, one particular commander did was he asked, basically got white fabric and asked for it to be kind of doused in, in kind of muddy, the kind of silt at the bottom of a river, of a riverbank to kind of turn it literally the color of the, of the landscape and the word, you know, is, is from, from the Hindu word. So that's, that's the story, that's how the story goes. But this really kind of takes off after the, the First World War because obviously this is a huge global conflict and technology changes a lot during the war. On the sort of field of battle, people are sort of learning things in real time.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:39:57]: And most of the armies, if they aren't wearing khaki at the beginning, they're wearing khaki by the end. And the idea of camouflage really becomes a lot more important. And khaki is the sort of, you know, the, the color that is, it's kind of a catch all term because it, it varies depending on the landscape you're in. But that kind of idea of khaki camouflage and kind of military fatigues and being close to the kind of the colors of the world around you is really embedded in khaki.  

Sue Wadden [00:40:29]: It is emblematic of that color. When I think of khaki, it's not about standing out, it's about being harmonious with your environment. So that is, that's perfect. So thank you. So I'm, I'm going to let you go here. You've had, we've had such a great conversation, but tell us a little bit about where listeners can find your work, your books, your articles, anything. Tell them how to find you.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:40:49]: Sure. So I do have a website which is Kassiasinclair.com and I also put out a monthly newsletter which you can sign up to at my website and you can also find me on Instagram @Kassiasinclair. I'm also sort of on TikTok, but you know, and I find, I find TikTok tough. So. But I am, I am there also as Kassia St. Clair, but mostly on Instagram and on my website and my monthly newsletter, which is about color and cultural history and design.  

Sue Wadden [00:41:22]: Perfect. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. I appreciate your time so, so much. If you ever want to talk about painting coatings, give me a call.  

Kassia St. Clair [00:41:29]: Oh, fantastic.  

Sue Wadden [00:41:32]: Excellent. Before we say goodbye, we'd like to congratulate our October Designer of the Month, Gailey Alex Galey is a Wall street executive turned DIY designer and creator who lent her brilliant eye for design as host and executive producer of HGTV's Home in a Heartbeat. Be sure to follow us at S SW Design Pros to see some of our work and help us celebrate this talented designer. As always, thanks so much for listening. Don't forget to subscribe, Leave us a review and tell other design and color lovers about our show. See you next time on Color Mixology.