BLUE and green should never be seen without a colour in between - that’s how the saying went.
It has also gone the way of numerous other redundant fashion rules.
These days blue and green are often seen together with no chaperone colour to make their colour pairing less shocking.
And foolish me thought similar fashion progress had happened with men wearing pink.
But apparently not.
When I recently bought a bold ‘fuchsia’ business shirt with blue pinstripes at a Warrnambool mens wear shop, I had no idea I was buying a ‘provocative’ shirt.
Perhaps I should have seen the signs.
There were few shirts left, there might have been a sale on, and the provocative fuchsia and blue was among the remainder.
I have an unremarkable complexion that needs all the help it can get to improve its appearance and good dash of bold colour from a shirt usually helps.
I’ve arrived at that opinion after many many people, my wife chiefly among them, helped me mature from being a fashion train wreck, urging me to stop being so conservative in my dress.
I have always liked bright vibrant colours that enliven, showing passion and verve.
But it’s been a long journey from liking a Kandinsky or Gauguin painting to putting those striking colours on my back.
By not thinking twice about buying this ‘provocative’ shirt, I probably flagged I had come some way down that path but I was blissfully unaware its purchase could make me a fashion groundbreaker.
My first indication that I had crossed a fashion boundary wearing the provocative shirt was when a workmate, with the sledgehammer humour for which he was cherished, pointed at me from across the office tearoom, and started yelling "gay, gay!".
I enjoyed the joke, thinking this was 2011 and pink’s association with homosexuality had long since faded.
The Nazis are no longer pinning pink triangles as badges of shame on the homosexuals they sent to the concentration camps.
The gay movement has since stuck it right up that association, turning upwards the downward facing pink triangle the Nazis used and adopting it as a gay pride badge.
But even that gay pride symbol has since been superceded by the rainbow flag, which itself in danger of being made redundant by gays who just don’t like being pigeonholed with a symbol.
However a straw poll of the office tearoom found some men still saw red at the thought of wearing pink.
Men could wear pink, but that didn’t mean they should, they said.
Regardless I blithely continued to wear the provocative shirt.
Arriving at work, listless on a grey morning, I would take off my jumper and get a shock at the periphery of my vision to jolt me alert.
That shocking defibrillator of colour intensity was the shirt.
It was as good as strong coffee.
Out in the street it also provoked reaction.
At a local supermarket checkout, a female assistant at an adjoining checkout called out “Gee, that’s a nice shirt!”
She also asked if I got much comment about it, flagging it was a novel sight.
I replied I got a lot of favourable comment, mostly from women.
This provoked a bemused comment from the male customer she was serving, who said he liked it.
This shirt had started something!
I had just come in to buy steak and three vegies for dinner and was setting off fashion discussion at the checkout.
Reluctant as I am to be in such a situation, I still wear the shirt because I like colour, pink and lots of other colours.
I don’t think a men’s enjoyment of colour should be limited to ‘Colorbond moments’ when they step out to collect the morning newspaper in their underwear and get spellbound by the striking colour of their new roof.
Blue for boys and pink for girls is restrictive for adults and pink is just another colour to play around with.
And one of the great things about wearing pink is that most women like it.
They not only tell me they like it but touch the shirt, with me in it, to confirm they like it.
But I hope this breast cancer awareness week passes quickly.
I’m getting tired of people assuming I’m wearing pink to support the cause and asking for a donation.
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