The Blue-Footed Booby

Picture this!  Last Friday evening, seated in a pretty courtyard garden with the warm setting sun shining on the family, I was treated to a demonstration of the peculiar mating dance of the Blue-Footed Booby bird.  

This was made somehow even more hilarious by the fact that both demonstrators (two of my sister-in-laws, one recently returned from the Galapagos Islands, the other simply well Attenborough'd), both encouraged by gin and tonic, were wearing blue footwear.  

This spontaneous bit of home entertainment plus Kevin, my colleague, having spent the past week re-categorising all our footwear on the website so that you can now search by colour (a brand new feature and a long time coming)  has had me thinking about colour and, in particular, the colour blue and it's allure when it comes to footwear.  Elvis sang about not stepping on his blue suedes, so if cladding our feet in shades of blue inspires cool creatives to write songs about them and nature has gifted birds with blue feet to make them more attractive to the opposite sex, we should take note!



I read somewhere that before Victorian times, pale blue was the colour mostly associated with girls and pink for boys.  Thankfully, we are moving into a time when most people think less of defining gender by colour.  

There's no denying that blue as a colour is loved by many, perhaps the so called, psychology of colour has something to do with our fondness.  Apparently, light blue is associated with health, healing, tranquility, understanding, and softness and dark blue represents knowledge, power, integrity, and seriousness.  So I wonder, if you wear a shade between light and dark, a cobalt or royal, you could be perceived to project and attract all of these qualities.

Finally, a bonus for those of us pretending to be on a diet most of the time, blue is supposed to suppress appetite.  So not a good colour for dining rooms, brilliant for fridge doors though and, if I needed an excuse for buying another pair of blue shoes, to be able to say to my partner in life, "they are an essential diet aid!", would be utterly marvellous!

Have a great week and get those blue shoes on, who knows where they could lead you!

Danielle


Just for fun, a Blue footed Booby film -