Brown is not the official color of poverty

Today I was doing a little investigative reading on colors and ran across a Wikipedia entry that I just don't agree with.

"Brown is the color of dark wood or rich soil. It is a composite color made by combining red, black and yellow. The color is seen widely in nature, in wood, soil, and human hair color, eye color and skin pigmentation. In Europe and the United States, it is the color most often associated with plainness, humility, the rustic, and poverty. It is also, according to public opinion surveys in Europe and the United States, the least favorite color of the public."

They make the claim that brown is a color associated with poverty and that it is one of the least favorite colors in the USA and Europe. I have to disagree with that statement and question how they arrived at such a conclusion.

My first case in point would be stating that a tapa Hawaiian shirt is normally brown in color and brown Tapa cloth is highly prized color amongst collectors.

Explorer Captain Cook sure liked the color brown, in fact he was the first European to collect Tapa cloth and introduce it to the rest of the world. In Tonga, tapa is known as ngatu, and in Tonga it is of great social importance to the islanders, often being given as gifts. Hey, have some poverty brah (said no Tongan ever)

So off to the internet to do some more checking. I checked some home decorating sites as well as performed some simple searches for best colors, favorite colors, etc. and came up with this consensus: "The most popular color in the world is blue. The second favorite colors are red and green, followed by orange, brown and purple." So far, the fine people of the Internet sure don't indicate that the color brown is a disliked color. But you cant believe everything you read on the internet can you?

But wait, pictures don't lie, let's do some additional image searches for "poor people" and "poverty". While I saw a lot of poor people wearing clothing colors such as white, blue, and black, there was very little in the way of brown clothing.

And then I was thinking that chocolate is brown, does that have an association with poverty? Umm nope. What about coffee, its brown in color, is that a sign of poverty?

Even many famous, prestigious universities are built from brown bricks. Not grey or red bricks, but brown, that alone should tell you something about the color brown.

In the end I think the majority consensus on the Internet got it right this time, and Wikipedia is plain wrong. Whether it's colored artificially or naturally, brown is always considered a neutral, yet undeniably popular color. I will always view it as a color associated with nature and our beautiful planet earth and will never look at it as a color symbolic of poverty.

By now your saying to yourself "you didn't mention brown skin color" and your right, I didn't go there because this blog is primarily about product marketing, textiles and clothing trends, not racial issues.

List of Top Hawaiian Shirt Designs for 2014

With a plethora of Hawaiian prints (in sometimes up to 6 colorways) being churned out by this manufacture and that one, choosing a good design for your personal Hawaiian shirt can be a monumental task. Our approach to choosing what to print (or what not to print) is relative simple. When it comes to men's Hawaiian shirts we primarily think about how to match Hawaiian clothing as well as incorporating select customer demographics into our decision.

If we had to pick the top colors for men's Hawaiian shirts based solely on sales numbers we would have to say that blues, purples, greens, browns, and lastly honorable mention for whites, are amongst the top picks for 2014 Wave Shoppe’s most popular shirts in those colors are as follows:

 

Pictured on your left is a blue Hawaiian shirt with pineapples. A good choice for guys that like a bit of a toned down look that's not quite a reverse print.

Product URL
www.waveshoppe.com/hawaiian-shirts-41.htm







Next we have a beautiful purple Hawaiian shirt in a men's cut. This is a big customer favorite, especially with the men that wear khaki shorts, as well as wedding parties.

Product URL
www.waveshoppe.com/hawaiian-shirts-38.htm







Green is another  popular color that pairs up well with khaki or sage pants as well as looking good on men with brown or darker colored hair.

Product URL
www.waveshoppe.com/hawaiian-shirts-42.htm

Last, but not least, we have brown. Brown Hawaiian shirts are always sophisticated looking but when you incorporate a tribal design in to the shirt you end up with a more than stellar looking garment.

Product URL
www.waveshoppe.com/hawaiian-shirts-43.htm




Please note that replicating tapa shirts on cotton is the norm nowadays and the brown tapa Hawaiian shirt above is an extremely detailed and fine looking design on cotton.