Color of the Day - Grass green

Grass green, 1872 – There are some bright greens which are becoming to the face, but only a few shades. I say bright in contradistinction to sage. A dull grass-green with a slight yellow tinge in it is a picturesque color, and often proves a success in a woollen day-dress, – some material, that is to say, without gloss. In silks or satins it is nearly as coarse and unpleasant as a pure bright green, innocent of any hint of blue or yellow; and when worn, as hundreds of women persist in wearing it, with a mass of scarlet, is so horrible as to give positive pain to a sensitive eye. In any concert-room or large assemblage a scarlet opera-cloak usually covers a green dress, and is capped by a green bow in the hair. One may count these unmakes by the dozen; and they arise from the generally-diffused milliners’ creed, that scarlet and emerald must go hand in hand, because green and red are complementaries. The vulgarity and disagreeableness of this mixture ought to be apparent to anybody with the very rudiments of artistic feeling.
Every Saturday, November 16, 1872

excerpt from:
Elephant's Breath and London Smoke
edited by Deb Salisbury
Available at www.Mantua-Maker.com