Death to Orange
I’d like to argue that orange is one of the colors of death. When I was young, my little brother’s friend haughtily told me, as children do, that drinking Fanta caused cancer. The neon orangeness of Fanta became strangely ominous for me, and even though I knew it was a myth I stopped drinking it entirely after age nine and now it’s a habit. There’s something startling about the color and how many orange-colored foods must make their presence alarmingly known when eaten. Hot Cheetos, Doritos, all leave a dusty neon hue on our fingertips and even stain once satisfyingly licked off. Its artificial brightness makes us think nervously about chemicals, it’s fluorescence glows toxic waste, a poison to our bodies. Orange is a sign of destruction and a caveat before destruction. Orange is the traffic cone that guarded a depthless manhole, orange is the flames that surged around a burning car and stretched over the entire screen as the movie character walks confidently away from it.
Orange is harsh, it’s brilliant and demands attention. When considering orange in textiles, it continues to speak around life and death in uniforms. New York Department of Environmental Conservation highly recommends hunters to wear Hunter Orange that covers at least 250 square inches of your body and can be seen from all directions. While other hunters can see each other, deer and other game animals cannot detect the difference between orange, brown and green no matter how fluorescent. To wear hunter orange means a bringer of death and the maintenance of life all at once. On the flip side, orange can also be a uniform to signify what the state considers a life marked for death. Orange prison jumpsuits are often associated with inmates at Guantanomo Bay who are considered non-compliant in contrast with the standard white uniforms of their more compliant peers. Guantanamo Bay is widely regarded as an extremely unethical and cruel facility where prisoners are held indefinitely, also considered “forever prisoners”–a death sentence in of itself. Yet orange can also denote continual death alongside continual life. The uniform of Buddhist monks can be an orange robe, where it’s color represents a constant flame that reminds them and others of the truth, purity and the path towards enlightenment. Death for a Buddhist monk does not signal end, but rather part of the natural cycle of life.
Death to Tennis’s William Watson, recently collaborated with O.N.S. to deliver the collection, DOMANI, that features several pieces made from a brilliant militant orange with a subtle digital camo print. DOMANI means tomorrow in Italian and Watson first heard the word in the 90’s when he spent time clubbing in Venice Italy when partygoers would exclaim “Domani!” when deciding to go back to work the next day. Domani’s orange is then, altogether an orange that looks towards the tomorrow, the future, the death and rebirth of another day. It is in this context, that we can remind ourselves that orange is the color of sunsets and sunrises, and while death is imminent, so is life.
Check out the Domani Collection – here
Words by: Sheenie Yip
