Colour combinations are tricksy things, but exciting possibilities await. Taupe and fuscia, blood orange and dove grey, forest green and bright mustard. Is the mind giddy?!

One of my favourite combinations is black and blue.

Maligned by many generations, black and blue is a class act. Think black and blue grosgrain ribbons tied in shiny bright red hair! Or tweed-y bouclé wool in a sharp suit with gold buttons – black jacket, blue trew. Or howsabout a midnight blue silk column and black patent shoes avec matt bows? Limitless, excitable permutations.

Texture is key. Think of the deepest, darkest Indian ink velvet with the deepest, darkest navy in fluid, fine wool. Or a beige-based soot, the kind of black that has faded in the sun leaving it with an antiqued tinge, with tattered, feathered sapphire.

Together, black and blue reminds me of Coco Chanel’s sharp observation: ‘elegance is refusal’.

BDW

For some reason, this image reminds me of my childhood. Maybe it’s the reminder of feeling very small in a very big world, with tall adults around you (like trees reaching for the sky), being blinded by the sun as you looked up to see their faces.

But childhood also reminds me of knitting. The act and art of knitting was everywhere in my youth. Obsessive knitter taught me to knit before I could flex my digits. Nana knitted us socks and jumpers, the obsessive knitter knitted us those and more.

One of my favourite items was a cherry red balaclava. Given I was a sickly child (involving glue ear and tonsils), the balaclava was the best remedy – wrapped close around the neck and protecting the ears from the cold winds.

But it was the colour that got me. Given that red is my all-time, best-est, most cherished colour, it was inevitable that giving me something red was going to win favours with me. It still does – even if it’s a dish-cloth (‘it’s red – now go use it’). Red in all its permutations still excites and calms me at the same time. Perhaps a bit like this picture.

BDW