Colour-metrics Beijing Winter 2009

I did some counting while sitting at different Starbucks cafes and looking at the passers-by. I counted the colours of the people's over coats until one of the columns filled up with one hundred passers-by, and that was always BLACK. The three spots I chose were 1) next to Jianguomen underground station, 2) shopping mall The Place and 3) shopping mall Oriental Plaza. All in all, 29 % of women and 56 % of men had BLACK overcoats. For women, the next most popular colours were WHITE (14 %), RED (10 %) and GREY (7 %), followed by BROWN (6%), YELLOW, PINK and BEIGE (5 % each). KHAKI, BLUE and PURPLE each gained 4 % popularity, and finally BLUE-GREEN or TURQUOISE 2 % and PALE-BLUE 1 %.
For men, the palette was much more limited. As the black ruled, the following favourites were GREY (10%), RED, KHAKI and DARK BLUE (7 % each), and BROWN (5 %). ORANGE and BEIGE gained 2 % popularity, and odd votes were given to white, yellow, green, pink, turquoise, and purple.
Photo Tiananmen Square January 2009.

Red

Yellow

Yellows vary from pale and cool to golden and warm.

Purple

Also purples vary from hot to nearly indigo, from shiny to matt.

Pink

Pinks have a great variety: from the hottest of the hots, through shiny and coral, all the way to the palest powdery pink shades.

Blue-green

Blue-greens include also darker shades than I managed to catch with my camera.

Black, white and chequered

Black governs; white shoes are considered hip for guys, and check the bling in the lady's boots!

On the other photo, she is one of the first to have chosen chequered pattern, but there is also colour... in the glove fingers!

Down jackets & Beijing ladies

By far the most common jacket is the down jacket; but it comes in three lengths: the cropped, the half-length and the calf-length, as these three happy ladies exhibit.

Beijing 798 just closing

Pyo Gallery 798 has featured contemporary Chinese artists' 'Present 2008' exhibition. Even though it is a tiny exhibition (with 30 participating artists), it seems to feature the colours of contemporary Chinese art in a nutshell. Closes on January 20th, 2009.

Beijing 798

Whenever in Beijing, the Art District 798 is a must. Black seems to be a good background for a collage, whether it be art or a display for porcelain and ceramics. They both caught my eye (and the porcelain also my wallet)…