Devine Color's Blog

What Happens Now That Elizabeth Taylor Is Gone?

 

Regardless of her incredible talent, kindness and generosity, my grandmother always said that no man could resist Elizabeth Taylor’s violet eyes. Once a man looked directly into them, it was as if they had looked into the eyes of Medusa; but instead of being turned into stone when they looked into her eyes, these mortal men of her generation were quickly turned into hopeless husbands—frozen under her spell. It was as if the “gods” had gifted Elizabeth Taylor with her own special hue. This was a powerful and magical metaphor in my life. Elizabeth Taylor was not a mere human; she had a “special color” all to herself. I was being interviewed with Cynthia Rowley on live television about a Devine Color palette she had curated when both of us found out that Elizabeth Taylor had passed away.  We took a long pause before we could even reply. The first thing I thought to myself, “Does anyone else have violet colored eyes? Is this magical eye hue now extinct?”

If the eyes are the windows to the soul, Elizabeth’s were just as unique, rare, and independent as her acting roles and love stories. She always expressed her violet sense-of-self through colorful jewels and fashions.

You can’t help think of shades of violet blue (Devine Skyline), gold (Devine Le Pot d’Or), crystal (Devine Pique), emerald green (Devine Juniper), ruby red (Devine Paprika), and charcoal black (Devine Piping), when you think of Elizabeth’s iconic look and fashion legacy. If you are in the mood to paint, put some of that irresistible Liz Taylor color sense on your walls and watch everything else in your home fall under that same spell.

 

Royal Walls!

Wicked (Fantastically Wicked)

I just saw the musical “Wicked.” It is a play that takes you behind the personal motives, passion, and beauty of Oz, as in “The Wizard of Oz.” The colors are amazing.

Susan Hilferty’s original sketches for Wicked the musical costumes were done in gouache – a kind of paint or pigment suspended in water that resembles a rough watercolor.
Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, is emerald green. On stage she is surrounded by colors that makes her green skin more beautiful as her passion rises and ignites action and her life changes.

Susan was influenced by Dr. Seuss for the design of Oz costumes, especially for the Emerald City. “The vocabulary and tone came partly from the Denslow illustrations from 1900,” Hilferty says, referring to the drawings by W. W. Denslow in the original The Wizard of Oz books.

Waitress (Pie-Shaped Colors)

 
A New Year Resolution is the dessert of the holiday season served at the end of your Christmas buffet. Christmas has become the “Last Supper” of the marketing world for diet products, programs and exercise clubs. Every year you see diet commercials, half-their-size magazine covers, and listen-to-this-story morning shows that focus on weight loss triumphs to remind everyone that a new year and a new life is just around the corner.
A diet seems easy in comparison to getting a new life, especially one that does not look or feel like yours. Just ask Jenna, a woman who scoops, rolls and bakes her frustrations away through colorful and delicious pies with names such as “I-Don’t-Want-Earl’s-Baby Pie”, and “Falling-in-Love Pie”. The movie Waitress, a sweet and funny “dramady”, leads you down the psychological and moral escape routes that Jenna and her waitress friends take in order to cope with a reality they feel is not theirs.

The Holiday (Relationship Blues)

Release Date: Dec 08, 2006; Rated: PG-13; Length: 135 Minutes; Genres: Comedy, Romance; With: Jack Black, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law and Kate Winslet

A woman wants to be alone for the Christmas holiday. Another wants to run away from her loneliness. An old man has learned to live alone. A gorgeous man has yet to learn to live with it. And a funny man is there just to make it funnier.

The movie The Holiday has a gem of a color story. Two women trade homes for two weeks and their homes are a huge part of the story. The color that speaks volumes for both women is blue, shades of blues.

Little Miss Sunshine (The Color Of Sunshine)

OK, so I have already seen “Little Miss Sunshine” twice. Once for the story and, the second time, for the color! Some people talk about the lighting in movie making. I love that light turns into color.

Yes, the color in movies is sometimes used so brilliantly that I have to go back to see it again. This movie is about a family that has to handle disappointments while pursuing their dreams.
A father who believes in nine steps to becoming a winner; a son who wants to fly; an uncle who wants love; a grandfather who wants to be young again; a mother who wants a united family; and a little girl named Olive who wants to be a beauty queen. That’s the begining of the story.

Padre Nuestro (Que Estas En Sundance!)

It was 4:30 on Thursday afternoon, and I was feeling so lucky and tired! We were at the Sundance Film Festival, a dream that had finally come true. We were ready to see the seventh film on our list, Padre Nuestro.

Lars And The Real Girl (Rosy-Colored Glasses Included)

The uniquely colored vision of Lars and the Real Girl lets you feel the lack of love in Lars’ life through his stone-cold and grayish-white home, where the bleakness of the colors say more about his life than he is willing to admit. When he finally decides to do something about it, he orders a “girl-in-a-box,” a life-size doll as the answer to his life-size loneliness. Bianca arrives on the scene: black vinyl boots, fishnets included, as a perfect match for a man who feels so isolated, human touch hurts like a burn.

Far From Heaven (Heavenly Technicolor)

Far from Heaven is a 2002, Academy Award-nominated film written and directed by Todd Haynes and starring Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Ryan Ward, Dennis Haysbert, and Patricia Clarkson.

My family loves movies! We see a movie every week. For “District B-13,” an action-packed French movie, we even read subtitles. (No, it was not painful.) The story is a cross between “Escape from New York” and “16 Blocks.”

Cloverfield (No Dark Regret)

Cloverfield is our MOVIE MOODS review for the March issue of DEVINE COLOR MAGAZINE posting this Friday.

Cloverfield is not a monster movie, it has a monster in it. Do not let the trailers or the hype fool you. It is like a love letter to a twenty-something generation known to be as jumpy about relationships as the hand-held camera used in this film.