It’s bright. It’s un-rhymable. It’s new in town. That’s right: it's time to talk about orange.
Orange is prominent in many predominantly Asian religions. Buddhist monks typically wear orange robes, a tradition originating from practicality. Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha and founder of Buddhism, dyed his robes the distinct shade in his efforts of modesty. The most available dye of the time was saffron, creating that orange hue for the robes.
In English, the color orange did not actually have a name until the 16th century. Rather, it was referred to as “yellow-red,” and occasionally “saffron.” However, once orange trees were brought to Europe from Asia by merchants, the color was named for the fruit, stemming either from the Old French “pomme d'orange” or the Spanish “naranja.”
The first recorded use of the word is debated. Some sources accredit it to a 1502 letter describing Princess Margaret Tudor’s dress color while others say the first mention was in 1512 in a will, of all places. In the mid 1590s, Shakespeare ran with the word, using it as both the color and the fruit. By the 1660s, when Isaac Newton experimented with light, he included orange as a basic color in the light spectrum, solidifying its role in Europe as its own color.
Beginning in the 1820s, prisoners in the U.S. wore black and white stripes, but now they are commonly decked in an orange uniform. The orange jumpsuit is by no means universal, but it is still used frequently in real prisons and even more frequently in Hollywood ones, such as in “Orange is the New Black.” An article published in a Sage Publishing Journal by Jan Fox detailed how any uniform – be it lab coat, Hooters, firefighter or prison – establishes a role and sense of difference. For the prison jumpsuit, its neon orange brings a sense of depersonalization and the stigma of years of incarceration.
The orange jumpsuit has become especially politically charged in the past twenty years. The orange prison jumpsuit is also heavily associated with Guantanamo Bay, as it was the highly publicized uniform all prisoners were made to wear. Because of this, ISIS deliberately dresses victims in similar orange jumpsuits in videos of the terrorist group murdering people.
Today, orange is used as a scream of a color. It is selected for many traffic cones, “Road Work Ahead” signs and other things that demand attention. International Space Station crew members wear orange in case of emergencies – if an astronaut has to parachute out of the spacecraft in an emergency the orange helps emergency crews find them.
Orange is also commonly tied to Halloween. According to Country Living, orange emerged as a Halloween color due to its role in another piece of produce: pumpkins. Carving harvested vegetables was originally an Irish tradition with turnips and potatoes, but when 19th century Irish immigrants came to the U.S., they discovered orange pumpkins worked best.
Orange was late to the color game, but it has been hard to miss since it sprouted on the color wheel a few hundred years ago. Perhaps its late arrival, or maybe its strong pigment are the reason 30% of people say it is their least favorite color. No matter its popularity, orange has a crucial role in society. Orange ya glad you know its history?
Editor-in-Chief
