Dress Designing – Basic Principles of Color

As color has a tremendous emotional impact and effect on moods and appearance its importance in dress designing is without question; and because of its importance it is well to learn something about it.

SCIENCE OF COLOR

Color comes from light reflected, from the visible spectrum of radiant energy produced by electromagnetic waves. Light and color are composed of atoms traveling in waves at a speed of over 186,000 miles per second.

Various colors in the visible spectrum are of different wave lengths – red has the longest wave length and violet the shortest that the human eye can see. White is the combined reflected light of all the colors of the spectrum; and black is the absence of all reflected light and color.

COLOR IN LIGHTING

The use of colors in lighting differs from pigment colors or paint – and it mixes quite differently. In lighting the primary colors are not red, blue, and yellow – but BLUE, GREEN AND YELLOW RED.

Blue, green, and yellow red light combined produce white light. Blue and green combined produces blue-green light; blue and yellow red produces violet; green and yellow red produces yellow.

Red filters absorb all colors except red, which passes through; green filter absorbs all but green; blue filter absorbs all but blue; and the yellow filter absorbs all but red and green which pass through the filter in combination as yellow.

Green and red filters combined, absorb and stop the passage of all colors. The same thing occurs when blue and yellow filters are combined.

For anyone involved with dress designing who is going to create costumes for the theatre, it is of prime importance to know how the colors of her costumes will react to the colors used for stage lighting.

COLOR IN PAINTS

In pigments, the substance we use to paint or color our material, the PRIMARY COLORS are RED, YELLOW, and BLUE. These are the colors with which we can reproduce all the colors of spectrum. In addition to these, the chromatic colors, we have the achromatic or neutral colors which range from black, through the various shades of gray, to white.

When these are mixed, one or more with another, in various proportions and combinations we can get tremendous variations in hue, value, and intensity.

COLORS COMBINED

The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue.

The secondary colors are midway between each primary color: Mixing yellow with red we get orange. Mixing red with blue we get purple. Mixing blue with yellow we get green.

The tertiary colors are midway between each primary and secondary color:
Yellow and orange produce yellow-orange.
Orange and red produce red-orange.
Red and purple produce red-purple.
Purple and blue produce blue-violet.
Blue and green produce blue-green.
Green and yellow produce yellow-green.

The following pairs of colors are complements to each other:

Red and Green       Yellow-Orange and Blue-Violet

Yellow and Purple      Red-Purple and Yellow-Green

Blue and Orange      Red-Orange and Blue-Green

COLOR SENSE

HUE is the name for a particular color to distinguish it from another, such as red from blue, or pink from purple, etc.

VALUE expresses the tones tints, or shades of any particular color or hue ranging from very light – almost white but with a slight tinge of color – to very dark or almost black.

INTENSITY represents the purity of a color – color which is not neutralized or softened by mixing with its complement.

DOMINANT HARMONY is self color harmony of different values of the same color. Soft effects are achieved by combinations of closer color values, and more striking effects by values farther apart

With these guidelines, those involved with dress designing will be able to choose the colors she needs and which have the most effect.