Swedish colours

Once, I asked a local from Stockholm why, having such a dark winter, citizens tend to dress neutral, dark or even little vibrant colours. To me, this felt something contradictory, or at least, counterproductive in terms of psycological impact. After some minutes, as he never thought about this before, he replied: I guess it has to do with how Swedes perceive colour. We live surrounded by nature, from which we perceive colours. Ours clothes reflect our perception of those that are more common in the landscape. Those that result more familiar to our eyes.

After that wise thought, I understood that Sweden and its colours are strictly linked by daylight. While living there, experiencing the great contrasts between seasons, I found similarities between clothes, furniture, interiors and nature. In winter, everything tends to be less saturated, grey colour is the most predominant, shadows become blue and sunny days dye everything in yellow. On the contrary, during summer, green comes alive.

In my last two months of quarantine, I became a common parks and woods visitor. Certainly, there I found some chromaticity that, after all, resulted familiar to me.