Can the Irish wear green? Deirdre McQuillanon how best to approach this tricky colour.
No one ever asked Charles Stuart Parnell why he hated green so much. He wore the colour but wouldn't mount a platform if it was decorated with green. The late author and historian Éamon MacThomáis had no such phobias and told me once that he wore green tweed suits as a gesture of his proud republicanism. Whatever way you look at it, green is a colour copperfastened to Irish identity, pinioned to the Tricolour and overloaded with political and psychological associations. You can be green as in innocent and naive, or green and eco-friendly, or green with envy, but if you're from the Emerald Isle, everyone knows your nationality.
Symbolism aside, when it comes to fashion, it's a tricky colour. Green, white and orange, so familiar to us Irish, is a dreadful combination for Celtic complexions. Primary green, says couturier Peter O'Brien, is the least suitable for our skin tones, and even worse when it's green, white and nylon. "Green and orange together look horrible, but khaki greens are much more flattering, and khaki with pale blue can look breathtaking," he says. Everything depends on the shade. Designer Richard Lewis concurs that the only green shades that sell are olive and jade.
One woman who can't live without the colour is former model Teresa Carr, new proprietor with her husband Kelvin Reinhart, of Locks Restaurant in Portobello, Dublin 8. "As I don't wear much make-up, green brings some colour to my face. I've just bought a Lucy Downes green cardigan - it's a very Irish-dancing green - which I wear with a long-sleeved green T-shirt and green eyeliner, so yes, I can look very Patrick's Day parade . . ."
Her preferred shades are army khaki green and moss green, "though I have to be in the mood for it". Given that she buys all her husband's clothes, there are no prizes for guessing the colour he wears, too.
When you start thinking about green, you notice it everywhere. Oprah Winfrey on the cover of a magazine in an emerald green jersey dress, all the shades of green in the M&S T-shirt section, the LK Bennett green suede ballerinas, and the green polka-dot silk dress by Pepe on our cover. At the international fashion collections this spring, it was conspicuous at Christian Dior, where John Galliano sent out heart-stopping dresses of chartreuse, jade and olive green. At his own show, pale green tights or shoes in mint suede showed how decisively such colours can brighten things up.
I wore green for 11 years as my school uniform, which consisted of a bottle green Foxford tweed skirt and belted coat, green and white check shirt, green cardigan and green beret. That was for winter; in summer it was a green gingham dress, green blazer and green sportswear. No wonder it took some time before I had the bottle to start wearing that colour again, free from emotional baggage. Now I love a bright green scarf with black and white, a pea-green jacket in the spring, khaki shirts in summer, and emerald earrings anytime. Green to be seen, or green for camouflage.