Painting your body Duke blue is the only time it’s okay to go completely monotone. Outside of K-ville, dress up your winter grays, blacks, navies and browns with some color. The rainbow expands beyond the ROYGBIV basics and encompasses honeysuckle, chartreuse, and vermilion. Explore them, enjoy them: our campus needs some S.A.D.-fighting color!
Color-fix tips:
1. Admit that black and white are not colors (we’ll get technical for a second: black is the absence of light, and white is the reflection of wavelengths of visible light).
2. Don’t wear two shades of the same color at once. Professors do this. You shouldn’t. No need to copy the purple-on-purple fashion of your Ph.Ds. It looks regal and wise on them. It won’t on you.
3. Knits: Big, bold knits are in. Wear them around your neck, on your head or about your ankles (yes, leg warmers are back in Billyburg, so they are welcome here). You could even learn how to knit—though it’s too bad there aren’t craft classes offered at Duke. It is the perfect pastime for the Type-A artist who loves precision: knit one, pearl one.
4. Jay McCarroll brought colored headphones to the runway in season one of Project Runway; now you can—and should—bring them to campus.
5. This one’s a female fallback: nails. Winter air is dry, and our cuticles need attention. Head to the salon for a professional manicure, or go to Rite-Aid for your own bottle of purple or something neon.
Even the tiniest bits of color counterbalance our vitamin D-deficient skin. I’m preaching color, but tanning-bed-baked ochre is best avoided. Let your skin naturally restore its healthy hue on spring break or in a month or two as the sun creeps back into our lives. o
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