Area Life

Swift album has everyone seeing orange

NEW YORK -- Orange you ready for it?

Taylor Swift swathed her bombshell album announcement in a shade she's calling Portofino Orange Glitter after donning the color onstage during the latter part of her latest tour.

So now, will "The Life of a Showgirl" usher in the pop star's Orange Era? On the "New Heights" podcast Wednesday night, Swift leaned toward a yes.

"I've just always liked it, Jason," she said, addressing interlocutor Jason Kelce, while sitting next to boyfriend Travis Kelce. "It feels like kind of energetically how my life has felt. And this album is about what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during this tour."

In all its glory, the color can evoke creativity, enthusiasm, energy, optimism and more. While some see a downside in the brighter hues, perceiving them as clownish or silly, orange is more often exuberant or inviting, color experts said.

The positive sentiments are precisely how Swift described the mood she wanted to capture on the album: "so exuberant and electric and vibrant."

Here's an exploration of the color orange, from pale peach to deep terra cotta.

Orange brings all the feels

Laurie Pressman, vice president of Pantone Color Institute, said Swift's shifting of her color story to a bright orange feels like a "new personality coming out."

"And she looks so happy," Pressman said. "She's glowing and she's basking." The orange hue Swift is going with is the perfect expression of positive vibes, Pressman said. The closest shade in Pantone's vast library of color is called "Exuberance."

"Even when you go down to the peaches, which are very pale," she said, referencing the spectrum of orange, "there's a deliciousness, there's a warmth that comes with that. There's just a softness, a tactility. There's a sweetness to it."

In its deeper tones, orange is also all goodness, Pressman said.

"Going all the way over to the darker terra cottas, there's an earthiness and authenticity, but also warmth. Whereas red is about being bold and dramatic, orange is more friendliness, more approachable," she said, noting a previous era of Swift's.

As saffron, it can have religious connotations

The saffron shade is a different story in a contemporary context in India, said Dheepa Sundaram, who researches Hindu nationalist politics as an assistant professor of religion at the University of Denver.

In ancient Hinduism and Buddhism, she said, monks and other spiritual figures who renounce worldly life clothe themselves in saffron garb as a way to express their piety.

"Some people have speculated that it's because saffron (the spice) was really cheap as a dye and sort of fit with the poverty roles of monks and aesthetes. Kings and royalty preferred more expensive colors like the colors of rubies and emeralds," Sundaram said. (Nowadays, though, saffron is among the world's most expensive

spices.)

Fast forward a couple thousand years, give or take, to a right-wing policy strategy wielded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's powerful Bharatiya Janata Party that aims to implement Hindu nationalist views and embraces the saffron color as a symbol. Incendiary, anti-Muslim songs have been dubbed "saffron pop."

"The color saffron has become their color. They have sort of positioned themselves as true Hindus, and this has become part of that schtick," Sundaram said.

So what about that glittery Portofino orange?

Swift and Kelce frolicked last year in Lake Como, but did they also hit up Portofino and soak up some orange-hued charm in the coastal village known for its colorful buildings?

That's unclear, which didn't stop the mayor of Portofino and the Portofino Yacht Marina from jointly hopping on the orange Tay train for the album announcement. On Tuesday, the Italian Riviera playground for the rich and famous, via Instagram, issued the "it" couple an open invitation to visit.

"We are ready to welcome you, and we are already preparing an official Portofino Yacht Marina T-shirt for you … with a logo in perfect orange!," read the Italian-

language post. "Between sunsets on the sea, music and the magic of the main square, Portofino awaits you. And it already shines in your color."

The luxe destination features ocher- and terra cotta-colored buildings along the port that reflect on the water, particularly during sunsets.