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50 shades of white: Why is everything white & what happened to our colours 

Myself and my team are a fairly young crew of Gold Coast House Painters. At this point in time, we’re only a small crew but every one of us is in our mid 20s so whenever we cross paths with seasoned painters, we listen out and soak up their wisdom, but mainly we just laugh along at the typical tradie stories they’ve accumulated over the years. 

Anyway, recently we got chatting to an older painter who had been in the game longer than I’d even been alive. The casual banter drifted into what paint supplier he uses, some, like myself swear Dulux, some by X some by Y. That drifted into how 95% of our work is done in white. I never really thought about that, when I began painting that was the norm, but then I thought back to my childhood and even then I remember houses being a little more colourful. Not eccentric, but a little more coloured. Whether you love it or hate it, where did this trend begin? Nobody can say for certain and no doubt there are 100+ reasons why trends begin. But I got researching and I want to share a little information with you on at least 1 reason why this might be. 

In the past, colours were a wealthy thing 

Did you know coloured paints and colours in general were not always available to the common person. It was only around the mid-late 1800’s in which coloured household paints became available as synthetic dyes were manufactured. Colours all throughout history were a symbol of status and wealth. Often inaccessible and hard to obtain. Think about it, colours are everywhere in nature, but extracting that colour and making it usable in a large scale way is another thing. For example: 

History is full of trends 

So perhaps, and again there are a million reasons why trends change. But perhaps one reason is the development of modern synthetic pigments meant colours stopped being exclusive. Today, colour has become more of a preference over a signal. Throughout history, trends (but not always) have been shaped by those with excess and then followed by the people seeking to emulate. With plentiful and relatively cheap paint across the globe, has colour lost some prestige? Ironically, today the wealthy trend is minimalism dominated by white. Maybe white walls, love them or hate them, are just a repeat of history. 

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