Colour Psychology: Red

One of the three primary colours, red is perhaps the most manipulative colour on the wheel. It is associated with extremes of emotion both good and bad – passion and anger, fortune and fury, blood and money, warnings and celebrations.

We roll out the red carpet  on a red letter day and if that goes well we might paint the town red afterwards. But if that award doesn’t come our way, we might see red. Or perhaps we are down to our last red cent after buying an outfit for that party. Maybe the invitation was nothing more than a red herring anyway.

CREDIT: PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL SINCLAIR, STYLING BY OLIVIA GREGORY

There are more sayings associated with this most volatile of colours than any other.

It is the first colour of the rainbow, the one that we always see, even when the others are nothing more than a vague shimmering presence – visible mainly because we know they are there.