Book Reports
Published on April 30, 2025

Book Report No. 2: The Secret Lives of Color, by Kassia St. Clair

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2544 words // 13min read time

Hello, fellow creative! Today, I’m going to share a book review/report with you. I look forward to sharing many titles in these reports and connecting them to my Creative Journey Series. I believe as creatives it is so important for us to study the works of others, and use the creative tools that other artists have provided. Seeing the field of art through many perspectives and lenses is crucial to growing ourselves as artists.

Whether you purchase these books second-hand, or check them out from a library, I can say that I recommend perusing them, taking them in, and processing their contents. Sometimes I will review a book that is written by an author who means to help us with our art, and sometimes I will review a curated art book that has a few editors and focuses on the artworks of a certain artist. In both cases, there is something to be learned and inspiration to be gathered.

Without further ado, I present:

The Secret Lives of Color, by Kassia St. Clair

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Why This Book?

This book caught my attention because it promised not just a guide to color theory, but a deep dive into the stories behind the colors, which is exactly the kind of layered, narrative-rich material that feeds my creative life. I was in the middle of thinking about color palettes for an upcoming crochet design, and I wanted something more nuanced than a standard color wheel. I wanted to really dig in to the historical and cultural backgrounds of color palettes, and The Secret Lives of Color is such a rich volume for that type of color search.

This book aligns perfectly with my creative journey’s first phase, especially in moments of seeking inspiration through unexpected sources. You can read more in the Part 1 blog post.

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This is 100% a book that you can use as a source of inspiration during Part 1 of the Creative Journey, “Starting with informed inspiration.” Here is a link to that post to take a deep dive into getting started. Just flip open the book, read about the lives of the colors, and choose a palette accordingly.

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About the Author/Artist

Kassia St. Clair is a British writer with a background in journalism and design history. Her lens is that of a curious and witty cultural historian without being pretentious. She’s not an artist or designer per se, but a storyteller who threads together the unexpected backstories of color with ease. Her expertise lies in weaving together art, fashion, politics, and science to reflect on the use of color through the ages.

From her website: “Kassia St. Clair is a bestselling writer and cultural historian. Her first book, The Secret Lives of Colour, was a top-ten bestseller, was selected as Radio 4′s Book of the Week and has been translated into twenty languages. The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History was a Radio 4 Book of the Week, a Sunday Times Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the Somerset Maugham Award. Her third book The Race to the Future is out now in the UK, the US and the Netherlands.”

According to Amazon.com: “In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from (whether Van Gogh’s chrome yellow sunflowers or punk’s fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilization. Across fashion and politics, art and war, the secret lives of color tell the vivid story of our culture.”

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Their Websites and Links

Overview and Core Themes

The Secret Lives of Color is a curated collection of short, fascinating stories about 75 individual shades, hues, and pigments, each with its own vivid past. Organized by broad color families (white, yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, green, brown, black, and gray), the book unveils the cultural, political, scientific, and artistic histories hiding in plain sight.

Rather than presenting color theory or design instruction, Kassia St. Clair approaches color as a living archive. Each entry reads like a tiny biography. You would just never know of a color’s influence on society, and some stories are even scandalous. You’ll learn how pigments were made, who used them, why they rose and fell out of favor, and what cultural baggage they still carry today.

Yes, this is a book about the backgrounds of colors, but more than that, it’s a book about how we see the world, and how that vision is shaped by everything from colonization to chemistry.

Themes

Kassia examines color as narrative. Each color is a story, and each color becomes a character in global history. Along these narrative lines, she also delves into power, class, and symbolism. Many colors were once available only to the wealthy or powerful, for example, ultramarine made from lapis lazuli, and some colors were used to assert dominance, as with colonial red uniforms or imperial purples.

There are 25 pages of preface in the book that give you all of the technical elements of color, from how we see it, to the arithmetic of color and light, to how artists build pigments and palettes.

The theme of art as a science is also explored. Kassia bridges the romantic and the technical. She talks about the chemistry in certain dyes, and also the radical ways that artists like Van Gogh and Turner used pigments. St. Clair subtly weaves in the sensory and emotional relationship we have with color. She delves into how it makes us feel, and how it connects to memory.

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Colors and Stories

Even in the table of contents, the visuals prepare you to see how each color section is a mood.

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The first page of each section has an introduction of the main color family, and then a color-coded list of the colors on the opposite page.

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Author/Artist’s Purpose

Kassia St. Clair’s main purpose in The Secret Lives of Color is to reveal the hidden histories, cultural meanings, and emotional power behind colors. She shows that colors aren’t just aesthetic choices, but living stories that have shaped (and been shaped by) art, fashion, politics, science, and everyday life.

She isn’t trying to teach formal color theory or offer a guide for designers. Instead, she’s creating a narrative archive to help readers realize:

  • How deeply color is embedded in human history and society
  • How color reflects changing values, technologies, and power structures
  • How something we take for granted can carry centuries of layered meaning

In short, her purpose is to spark wonder: to make you look at the colors on your clothes, your walls, your yarn, everywhere, and realize that each shade has a secret past you might never have thought of.

As Kassia St. Clair herself says, “Colors are cultural creations and they’re kind of shifting all the time, sort of like tectonic plates. Color is not a precise thing. It’s changing, it’s living, it’s constantly being redefined and argued over and that’s part of the magic of it!”

Here are some great screenshots of her Instagram profile:

I just love how Kassia brings out the color and history in the subjects of her photography.

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Each grid of 6 photographs tells a story on its own – the greenery and the architectural structure show a lush relationship between man and nature.

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And in this grid, an appreciation for the old, the historic.

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Creative and Artistic Takeaways

The deepest takeaway I would glean from this book is that our aesthetic choices are often unconsciously influenced by centuries of cultural baggage. Think of that scene from The Devil Wears Prada about the cerulean sweater. Miranda critiques Andy’s blue sweater, explaining that it’s not just any blue, but “cerulean.” She then details how the color cerulean originated in high fashion, trickled down through the industry, and eventually appeared in casual wear. The scene highlights how trends are not just random choices but are carefully orchestrated and influenced by the fashion industry. It emphasizes that even everyday clothing decisions are part of a larger system of consumer culture and social influence.

This is exactly what I think St. Clair is highlighting in her book about color. Every color has a secret life, shaped by history, geography, politics, and class. From Napoleon’s fatal wallpaper to the dangerous toxicity of Scheele’s green, color is never “just pretty.” The idea that color can be a “shortcut to storytelling” resonates strongly in visual work. Even a crochet blanket becomes a narrative object when colors are selected with intention. Colors carry emotional weight and knowing these associations can deepen your work as an artist or maker.

My favorite quote from the book is that, “Color is not a straightforward topic. It slips away when you try to pin it down.” This quote felt like a thesis statement. Color isn’t just visual, it’s emotional, historical, and elusive, and that’s what makes it so compelling as a creative material.

Memorable Colors

Baker-Miller pink, also called “Drunk Tank Pink”, is a soft bubblegum color which was used in prisons to calm inmates. Initially thought to reduce aggression, later studies showed it actually increased it. That is certainly an unexpected twist which shows how context matters.

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Prussian Blue was accidentally discovered in the early 18th century by a German pigment maker trying to create a red dye. It was the first modern synthetic pigment and helped people access rich blues which had previously been super expensive due to lapis lazuli.

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Mauve was the first aniline dye, discovered by accident in 1856 by an 18 year-old chemist named William Perkin while he was trying to synthesize quinine for malaria treatment. This kicked off the dye industry and transformed fashion almost overnight.

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This book will inspire you to build a few color palettes around specific shades with historical stories, and even tag your color palettes with narrative titles instead of just hex codes or mood words. To me, this is a a way to infuse more story and character into your design.

Visual Impact

The book is organized into short vignettes, sorted by color families. Each color family has a variety of shades, each with a 2–3 page mini-essay. The format of short stories is addictive, and the physical book is gorgeous. The page edges are dyed in their respective color groupings, which gives the book’s paper edge a lovely look.

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The Secret Lives of Color is a feast of small, distinct moods, each color its own little world. Though the book isn’t image-heavy, it builds a mental gallery of tone, texture, and contrast through storytelling. Here’s a distilled set of visuals, textures, and moods you might pull into your design practice:

Fragmented Color Stories

  • Tiny motifs, each one based on a color with a backstory
  • Visual patchwork, like a stitched encyclopedia
  • Modular blankets or motifs with unique color inspirations per square

Contrasts in Saturation and Meaning

  • Juxtapose colors with similar values but wildly different cultural roots: like Imperial Yellow next to Baker-Miller Pink
  • Visually mimic tension vs softer color stories. I bet you’ll be able to see how the contrast colors’ stories play into their pairing

Emotional Chromatics

  • Assign a color’s emotional weight in your pattern layout, such as melancholy hues in the center, and then energetic brights radiating outward
  • Think in terms of color like moving from one color and fading to another

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Critical Lens

I’m no critic, but here are a few words to hold space for nuance. This is what’s missing for me.

Strengths

This book shines in the fact that each color’s entry is a bite-sized, digestible essay, making the book ideal for creative prompts, palette brainstorming, or quick inspiration. It can appeal across different art mediums, and artists, designers, and writers can all find something relevant. It opens doors to unexpected sources of inspiration. I like how St. Clair emphasizes why a color matters culturally, not just how it’s used, adding richness to color selection in design work.

Limitations

Despite its strengths, the book also has some limitations. It carries a largely Eurocentric lens, and while there are some non-Western references, the book is largely grounded in Western art history, fashion, and industrial revolutions. Readers hoping for broader global representation may notice its gaps.

There is also a lack of of visual examples. For a book about color, it offers very little in the way of color palettes or images. You have to imagine most of the hues or look them up elsewhere, which may frustrate visual learners. If you want a deeper dive into colors, you may have to supplement with more sources.

For Makers and Artists

This book isn’t a how-to guide. It won’t tell you how to build palettes, combine colors effectively, or use color in a design context. Instead, it offers a kind of cultural toolbox, or a collection of symbolism that you can weave into your own creative practice. Of course, it’s up to you to make the leap from story to application.

Final Thoughts

I would wholeheartedly recommend this book, especially to visual artists, crafters, writers, and educators. It’s the kind of book that sneaks into your brain and subtly changes how you see everyday things. For anyone feeling burned out on Pinterest-perfect palettes or generic color advice, this book will reignite your wonder and give you fresh language for your visual world. It’s a delightful rabbit hole for the curious creative.

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Cross-Pollination

The Secret Lives of Color would pair well with Perfect Palette Vols. 1 & 2 by Lauren Wager. The Secret Lives of Color provides the historical and cultural why, while Perfect Palette explores the emotional and aesthetic how. I could also see a pairing with Colorful, by Iris Apfel, which we will be doing a book report on in the future. Where St. Clair traces color’s history, Apfel embodies its future. Apfel makes the argument that color should not only carry meaning, but make a statement. Both books offer permission to embrace color with intention and flair.

Thanks so much for checking out my analysis of this book. The free crochet motif that goes along with this book report will be released on Friday! Hope you have a great week, and happy crafting!

Rachele C.

Order my crochet pattern book: The Art of Crochet Blankets

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