### **The Allure of RED: Unleashing Passion and Power in Your Life**

In an age when the world is full of colour, there’s one hue that holds undeniable power: RED. Blood red, cherry red, scarlet, crimson, vermilion, terracotta, pomegranate, poppy, coral, cardinal, tomato… This colour demands attention, directly affecting our emotions and responses wherever it shows up. From the lure of a RED dress, to the threat of a RED stop sign, this colour dominates our eyescapes and our mentalscape – so let’s look at RED in all its glory.

#### **RED in Culture and History: A Timeless Fascination**

RED occupies a unique place in the history of cultures and civilisations: it resonates with paradox, alternately symbolising war and concord, love and anger, life and death. For the Ancient Egyptians, RED was the colour of energy: it signified life and victory. RED also holds a place of honour in Chinese culture, where it characterises happiness, prosperity and luck. It is associated with festivals and weddings.

#### **The Psychological Power of RED**

RED isn’t just attention-grabbing. It doesn’t just attract eyeballs. It grabs the mind. A study from 2010 found that a display containing RED cardiovascular information (simulating a high heart rate and adrenalin), compared with green, garnered twice as much attention and also heightened the hedonistic values held by the viewer. We’ve all known that RED is associated with danger and is used to signpost risks of various types in nature – stop, look and listen, don’t step over this line, don’t get too close to the fire. But this doesn’t account for all the examples of RED usage. After all, RED is also the colour of the heart, and of ‘getting hot under the collar’, of falling in love. RED is hot, intense and in-your-face. This two-sided quality makes it very useful to advertisers and branders. ‘Don’t think. Feeling is right’ RED: the colour of angry protest, of rebellion against the white-collar elite.

#### **RED in Fashion: Bold Statements and Timeless Elegance**

RED, indeed, is the real fashion-fashion colour, the obvious RED-carpet, gotta-have accessory for both men and women. A RED dress, tie, even pumps, can take an outfit – and a person – from drab to fab, by instilling confidence and sensuality. In fashion, designers use RED because it reminds them of the power of the colour to transform even the tiniest proportion of a garment into an eye-catching, unforgettable accented element. The streets are secondary carpets for these accessory RED items, which are indispensable for those who want to make a memorable statement through fashion.

#### **The Role of RED in Design and Art**

In art and design, RED, more than anything, seems to reflect a broad spectrum of emotions and ideas, from aggression and power to human warmth and comfort. Artists and designers employ it to attract the eye, accentuate and emphasise, and express passion. A dash of the devil-RED seen in this painting by Édouard Manet (1832-83) can set the tone or act as a focal point. The colour occurs in almost every perceivable tone, from orange-RED to crimson, and is often referred to in terms of its hue and brightness; for example, it can be described as highly saturated or deep, and soft or vivid. I chose RED because I see it everywhere I look, and in limitless combinations. And perhaps you do too. But here’s the thing: as you survey the scene, the RED objects and surfaces don’t look like RED things or paints in a can. They don’t respond to the sight of a ripe tomato or a raspberry ice. They can’t be equated with RED things. As long as your perception of RED is predominantly based on the visual experience of seeing RED things, there is no medium with a ‘RED’ property that exists independently of those things and to which you are reacting.

#### **Navigating the Nuances of RED in Everyday Life**

We can’t escape RED’s presence in daily life. Consider traffic lights, brand logos or shop fronts. RED catches the eye and commands attention, signalising stop or caution more effectively than other colours. This ability to tell us what to do makes RED’s influence in advertising distinct and potent. Without knowing it, sensors in the retina process information automatically, leaving us open to the manipulations of those who understand how to use colour to influence our choices and behaviour.

#### **The Symbolism and Significance of RED**

But go back to the beginning state of RED, and the colour, truly, is more than what appears only on the surface. It is the colour of extremes, the colour of the deepest passions, of the most urgent warnings. And its meaning and its power lie not only in what we see but as that impacts on what we feel.

The pervasive presence of RED throughout nature, culture and day-to-day human interactions says something profound about the colour: from the roses that beget romance, to the blood that pumps through our veins, RED’s brilliance attests to the passion and fervour of the human spirit. As such, RED’s ability to influence what we perceive and do is unmatched among the colours, meaning that RED is less a colour and more a behaviour within the spectrum itself.

**Understanding RED: A Color with Depth**

So, is this the end of our journey through RED? Not quite. What we can say now is that RED is a colour that holds complex meanings and associations – a colour of paradox, a blend of the fiercest passions and the most urgent warnings. If RED agitates and attracts; if humans use it to express, emphasise and evoke the most intense aspects of their emotions and experiences; then we might think of RED not simply as a sign or a symbol but as having a coercively real, compellingly powerful psychological impact on people. RED, as it turns up in all its different manifestations in our lives – fashion, culture and codes – is a colour felt as well as a colour seen.