Pity the poor Incredible Hulk. From handsome, ultra intelligent doctor to brutish and exceedingly large ogre, the monster has never enjoyed the slickest of transformations. Not only does he lose his improbable Hollywood good looks, he ends up inflated, in rags – and green.
And yet, as the next instalment of the series hits cinemas this weekend, featuring Edward Norton as Dr Bruce Banner, a physicist with serious anger management issues, two colours of green have come to the fore as markers of masculinity: everyman khaki, and a kind of deep emerald few men can countenance.
“As an intellectual vibration, smack dab in the middle of the spectrum, green can be a problem,” intones treacle-voiced Word Jazz exponent Ken Nordine on his bizarre 1966 album Colors: “That’s because there are so many different greens inside of green, and each one has a different IQ.”
Heavy stuff. But it is true that, apart from fictional characters – the Green Goblin, Green Hornet, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Green Mask – green (not khaki but true green) has rarely made it into the regular man’s wardrobe. So what’s the turn-off?
Andrew Bolton, curator of the Costume Institute of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is currently playing host to an exhibition exploring the influence of comic book superheroes on fashion, points out that, in the superhero case, green has some negative connotations related to excessive gamma radiation exposure and blood poisoning. (Gangrene, anyone?) In spite of being the proud owner of numerous green sweaters, he also suggests the colour is frequently used as “a symbol of evil or badness”. In the case of the Hulk (grey in his earliest incarnation), it “becomes a metaphor for metamorphosis, turning into a walking erection, a phallic symbol”.
On the other hand, pointing out Marc Jacobs’ tongue-in-cheek appearance in a bottle green Comme des Garçons suit at the April opening of the Takashi Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, Bolton notes there’s an “idea of rebellion in wearing a green suit of flat colour especially suited to this kind of pop art. It’s a dandified image at the moment, which of course goes against the original idea of dandyism, which was about being understated and going unnoticed.”
Thierry LePin, founder and designer of the French sportwear label *****L (Cinq Etoiles Luxe) has another problem with green, a tsavorite tone that made a strong appearance in his tightly edited summer collection. “Green sells well in Japan, not in France, because in France, especially for creative people, there are many negative suggestions about the colour green,” he says, noting this is particularly true in haute couture and the theatre.
Green is a colour that “attracts people because they don’t expect it. It’s actually very flattering on pale or darker skins, it works somehow,” LePin says. “People are very surprised when they try it – but of course you must convince them to try it in the first place!”
Sean Ashby, owner of Australian underwear and swimwear label AussieBum, says: “Typically green is a colour that always looks fantastic but many people are afraid to wear.” While the company’s offerings run the gamut of colour and print combinations, greens that aren’t khaki and forest shades play a minor part. “Visually, green is not difficult to sell. However, for a consumer, green is not the first colour of choice. Today the colours that are making the greatest impact are white, blue and traditional black.”
“I think about the commerciality of the colours but only at the end when I’m putting looks together,” admits American men’s designer Michael Bastian. The former men’s fashion director at Bergdorf Goodman in New York, Bastian comes to the design world having experienced the retail side at the highest level. One would imagine this gives him some special insight into what colours would be a sure bet on the shop floor.
“I’m not so into colours, like greige, that can’t be properly identified,” he says. “The hardest colour of all to wear if you’re not dark skinned is yellow, but if you have one piece in an unexpected colour it tends to have an arresting and attractive effect; people get drawn to it.”
Witness the Kelly green trousers Bastian showed for summer, an ironic (but not too ironic), nod to stereotypical WASP style. They connect “to country club America”, a style that inspires Bastian’s trademark classics, tweaked and updated with new cuts and exceptional fabrics lightly handled. Indeed, even his eponymous corner in the Bergdorf men’s store has received a timely adjustment. “We just redid it in black and white ticking,” says Bastian. Then he pauses. “Actually, now that I think of it one wall is olive. I guess I like green more than I thought.”
www.aussiebum.com
www.cinqetoilesluxe.com
www.metmuseum.org
www.michaelbastiannyc.com
