It is such a joy when the world of science presents womankind with Something
She Has Always Known. This week comes the revelation that females of the
species who don a red frock are likely to have more money and attention
lavished upon them than their less garish sisters. Hmmmn, d'ya think?
In a study by the University of Rochester, New York, a posse of menfolk
declared that they would devote greater resources to wining and dining a
woman in a red shirt than a blue, rating her more attractive to boot. Our
friends back at the lab link this finding to the role of the colour red in
signalling fertility, à la those resplendently scarlet-buttocked baboons.
The bar-room philosopher merely shrugs and raises her glass to another
rehashing of the old virgin/ whore scenario. Mary Magdalene or the Virgin
Mary - with whom would you rather enjoy a hot date?
For, while a red card on the pitch symbolises the end of one's ambitions, in
the still greater game of love the shade is a red rag to the bullish,
red-bloodied male. Where a little black dress is a practical wardrobe
staple, so a little red dress heralds search and destroy. Pace Chris de
Burgh, the lady in red ain't no lady at all, but an incendiary hell-cat bent
on conflagration. Red may be the colour of stop signs, but in the sexual
sphere it marks the consummate provocation to go.
Red's allure is more visceral even than sex. It is not merely primary, but
nature's primal hue; the ur-colour against which all others feel blah. It is
the first colour specified by name in almost all primitive cultures, and the
shade most deployed in their art. In ancient Hebrew tradition “Adam” means
both “alive” and “red”, while prehistoric man daubed with blood anything he
sought to summon to life. One sees red not merely with rage, but during all
life's heightened moments, erotic not least. Red is the colour of rude
health, but it can also be plain rude: the florid blush of orgasm, the
crimson flush of shame, the engorged lips of the aroused. In Milton's
Paradise Lost, even angels are crimson with ardour - “Celestial rosy red,
love's proper hue” - albeit that their love is divine.
Red is the colour of innocence surrendered. Eve's enticing apple is rarely
depicted as green. Scarlet women in the Western tradition always boast
something of the whore. The lasciviousness of the Wife of Bath is there in
her stockings “of fyn scarlet reed”. Hawthorne's Hester Prynne must bear her
scarlet letter, while Sting's Roxanne is not putting on “her red light” in
order to curl up with a good book. No siren is complete without her carmined
mouth: that emblem of inviolate perfection begging only to be besmirched.
Where there is sex, so there will also be power. While the red-frocked date
may be signalling that she is game, there is never any doubt who retains the
upper hand. Roman divinities were depicted with vermilion faces, and its
conquering generals followed suit. Old Testament associations with wealth
and luxury ultimately came to fruit in the Papacy's passion for scarlet.
Restricting the sporting of red to the suitably ennobled has traditionally
been an obsession of sumptuary laws. The Sun King decreed that only the
elite could sport his ruby red “Louis” heels, something that today's
Louboutin enthusiasts will surely identify with.
Even as she submits, the red-hot temptress will find some means of putting up
a fight. Mars's blood-red cast makes it the planet of war. The devil is as
red as the flames that he takes charge of, Judas Iscariot a carrot-topped
betrayer. From the 17th century onwards, a red flag was a signal of naval
defiance, battle decks stained red so that a wash of blood would cause no
alarm.
A woman in a ruby frock cloaks herself in the symbology of the battlefield,
whether or not she knows how magenta - a shade as gore-soaked as the
bloodied fields of the Battle of Magenta - gained its name. Red steels a
girl for action, girds her loins. Merely upon viewing the colour, the
metabolic rate is said to increase significantly. When subjects in a study
measuring grip were shown a red light, their strength increased by almost a
fifth. Red dress woman doesn't need telling that she is sporting the symbol
of anarchy and rebellion. She will already be busying herself demonstrating
that she is less the red under the bed as astride it. Her paramour may find
himself agreeing with Richard Burton's dictum that having a little red about
one's person is a guarantee of luck.
Football teams are no less fortunate when clad in red strips: not just
Ingerland's 1966 victory shirts, but the ruddy success stories that are
Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United. The best of British football is
always red. It remains the colour of the confident televisual performance,
hence the politician's penchant for a red tie - while if red cars are
showered with more speeding tickets than any other hue, it is only because
they so majestically draw the eye.
Sanguine Britons have always boasted a propensity for a dash of the red stuff,
claret as a colour as much as a good Bordeaux. Time was when a flash of
cerise was perceived as being such a positive, jaunty, empire-building
prospect. The sun never set on our plush scarlet cartography. While, if the
all-red route was pretty damn hard on those whose rights it supplanted, it
was a case of gin and tonics all round for plundering Brits. Well may
Napoleon have sniffed: “Red is the colour of England. I cannot bear the
sight of it.”
With this in mind, perhaps we can learn a lesson from the red-frocked vixen?
Of late, we are wont to associate red with negative connotations, as “red
faces in the banking world” cause us “to stagger ever deeper into the red”,
and the Government responds with its trusty “welter of red tape”.
Time that we reclaimed the colour's more positive associations. Roll out that
rosy Blitz spirit and sally forth: blood up, with a slash of vermilion
lipstick, and recession-quashing desire to paint the town a robust hue.
