“Colour is the skin of the world.”

“Colour is the skin of the world.” “One who knows how to appreciate colour relationships, the influence of one colour on another, their contrasts and dissonances, is promised an infinitely diverse imagery.” Sonia Delaunay’s Wiki-ubiquitous quotes make a strong case for letting colour flourish in one’s surrounding aesthetics. So did my Junya Watanabe S/S 15 skirt, which I wore to catch the EY exhibition dedicated to Delaunay at the Tate Modern yesterday before it came to an end. One person thought I was a performing part of the exhibition with my walking canvas of a skirt. It’s just one stellar example of how Delaunay’s brilliant cross-displinary pattern and colour compositions has filtered down into fashion. Or as Delaunay would have put it, into life, as she saw no difference between her paintings and her “decorative” work, placing equal importance on both oil on canvas and stitched up fabric patchwork. In part, Delaunay solves the problematic relationship between fashion and art by treating both as a commercial and creative enterprise without sacrificing the one thing that unites both clothes and canvas – their ability to visually stimulate the eye.

No surprise that Delaunay’s imprint on fashion and textiles is frequently evident in my own wardrobe. If Casa Sonia still existed today, I’d probably be an avid customer. I picked up Gerard Lo Monaco’s sweet book, which renders Delaunay’s works into imaginative pop-up pages. It might be a children’s book but like the supposedly “minor arts” that Delaunay immersed herself into, it’s a beautiful book in its own right. I thought I’d use it to dip into my wardrobe for Delaunay-isms…