Berlin is amazing – hip, vibrant, bohemian, sophisticated, artistic, musical, cultural and avant-garde, so great … I am running out of adjectives. The city still bears the marks of its forty year division into East and West. But like a phoenix, it is quite literally rising from the ashes of its tragic past.
Berlin has come back to life and color – each neighborhood with its distinctive flavor and palette. Read more..

I have always thought of glorious Paris in grand colors like gold and black, marble white and green bronze.
However, I recently saw the fabulous Yves Saint Laurent retrospective at the Petit Palais which lasts until August 29th. The show covers forty years of the designer’s creations and ends with the most gorgeous ball gowns in an apogee of color – a combination of elegance and purity of line in candy colored hues.
My color sensors were so alive and stimulated that I started noticing similar brilliant pastel colors all over town. Read more..

When I paired a purple top with a pair of brown capris today I was thinking “cool, crisp, travel perfect” not “attention getting”. What I discovered was that this combination seemed to many people unexpected and worthy of comment.

It started when two woman waiting in line behind me at Union Station commented that they loved the combination but would have never thought to put those colors together.  I just smiled and thanked them.

Then as I boarded a gentleman already seated said, “Love your color especially with that necklace.”  Wow, I would have thought from conservative suit and wingtips that he might be much more interested in the WSJ headlines than what anyone was wearing but you can never judge a book by its cover can you?

The woman sitting across the aisle added, “It is kind of an odd combination but how you have it together looks elegant.”

“Thank you!”

Then throughout the rest of the day four or five more people made similar comments and it got me to thinking.  Is the combination of purple and brown odd or elegant?  Of course you know what I think.  I was the one wearing it, right?

So what do you think?