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ColorTherapy in Film: Sex in the City/HBO Green

Name: Elemental AF-400, Thicket AF-405, Agave AF-420.
Brand: Benjamin Moore Affinity Line

Sex in the City opens this week, and since Sex is in the air, I thought I’d dive into a color & sex subject that I've been wondering about for years....



HBO has had a slew of programs in which every other set was painted the same shade of pea soup green. I could never decide if this was because A) the color was in vogue, B) it photographed well, or C) the people in it photographed well. After HBO cancelled all my shows, I stopped watching television so I’m barely interested. I have a friend who would like to guest-write a column on “blondes in green” but until then, I leave deeper analysis to the production-designer segment of the peanut gallery.

Suffice it to say, these sets are dripping in green. I know I personally look dreadful in this color—it clashes with my complexion, I find it drab and I don’t have the Patricia Field wardrobe for added buoyancy. Yet it somehow works on camera. Blondes do bounce right off of it, redheads even more so and it’s not as cool as “Mary Tyler Moore Blue” from the 70s. The camera hates bright white, which burns out the screen, and a complacent color is needed so here we are. Let’s look at a few photos.

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This wasn’t the only program on HBO to utilize pea soup green—I think their production team in the late 90s was pea green happy. Here, for example, is a still from Six Feet Under, which I think helps to contribute to its ultra-pensive melancholy: it’s drab. And I seem to remember the whole Fisher funeral home painted this color from toe top to crown.


Back to Sex in the City, Pea Soup seems to be a good foil for our peach-vodkas-n-cream complected gals, and all those fun frocks. Here are:

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Carrie’s UES apartment
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Miranda’s Brooklyn Brownstone
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Samantha’s Botox doctor’s office
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Charlotte’s bedroom
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The diner seen in every episode
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More or Carrie’s apartment

And on into the night. I had thought to produce downloadable “SITC” bubblegum cards for Color Therapy readers to trade with each other, but I didn’t think it would hold water with New Line.

So, reader, do you have Sex on the brain? Is this the default color de jour, does it look good on film or do you really love it? I know we’ll all be watching this movie for next season’s fashion and color cues. Let’s have a few cosmos while we study our fan decks.

Possible color matches, from the new Benjamin Moore Affinity line: Elemental AF-400, Thicket AF-405, Agave AF-420.


- Mark Chamberlain, interior and decorative painter

Tags

Aura, Carrie Bradshaw, HBO, Patricia Field, Sex in the City, pea green

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Comments (23)

It makes sense when you think about Albers' color tests: a gray green is opposite on the color wheel from rosy caucasian skintones, so it makes the skin look warmer and less sallow.

posted by barbara on 2008-05-27 11:53:07
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Years ago, I read an article about Carrie's apartment (most likely on a HBO/Sex &.. website); I remember that the "apartment" is painted with two layers: a sort of sage green and a lavender. All so the paint doesn’t look so flat.

posted by sepitts on 2008-05-27 12:06:54
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What I would really like is a closer look at Alexander Petrovsky's loft.... Now THAT's an apartment

posted by Ian B on 2008-05-27 12:11:04
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I always thought Carrie's apartment color was pretty drab, and didn't match her character. Later in the series the wall behind her bed was a pale pink, I thought it was a good change. And I too would love a tour of Petrovsky's loft...it was awesome.

posted by SarahinATX on 2008-05-27 12:30:46
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Sepitts, that was Miranda's place which had the green with the lavendar glaze overlay.

posted by Sleek on 2008-05-27 12:37:24
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I agree with SarahinATX. Carrie's apartment seems so depressing. I wouldn't want to live there.

posted by sarah nin on 2008-05-27 12:51:07
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Green is my fav color, but I wouldn't put most shades on the wall. The pea green with some grey is "drab"/"safe"/"Serene" enough for Carrie to escape the crazy city outside. Besides, if you have all that action outside your window wouldn't you want something different inside. Besides, Carrie isn't a beige girl, none of them are...the only one closetest would be Charlotte - but even she's more pearl pink than beige. So pea soup is a beige with some color. Especially if you want to shoes and clothes to pop more than the wall.

Big had a red wall, and it really had an impact to the space and scenes...if they did that in Carrie's place it would have felt wrong.

posted by nickel525 on 2008-05-27 13:10:00
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Just a nitpick. It's actually Sex and the City, not "in." I'm a big fan. I had to.

posted by mizK on 2008-05-27 13:11:11
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Glad you said it miz K, I was about to make the same comment.

posted by fancyd on 2008-05-27 13:13:38
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I always thought that Carrie's apartment was painted gray (i didn't really think of it as green) because it helped create a downtown/bohemian/'tough'-new york look that would make Carrie seem cool and urban to the mostly non-new yorker viewers of the show.

posted by Deeliscious on 2008-05-27 13:27:21
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Nope, Sepitts is right--it is Carrie's place that has the green and lavender glaze: "soft shade of celery green washed with a lavender iridescent glaze ("it looks better on screen - it has a glow about it," Conway explains)." It's all here: http://www.hbo.com/city/interiors/carrie.shtml

posted by Shannon in SF on 2008-05-27 14:10:37
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My bedroom is that color. Inherited it. Dislike looking at it... but it does flatter my rosy complexion.

posted by pookie on 2008-05-27 14:17:06
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Carries apartment was definately drab and rather dark which served as a perfect foil to the character's M.O.; sex, writing and fashion.

posted by Seaside on 2008-05-27 14:37:28
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I thought it was kind of shadowy without being dark. It almost looked like if her walls were white but never hit directly with light, a vague murky color. I think set design is fascinating in general. I think there's a color theory as to how the apartment was painted and lit, and another social/psychological theory as to how to make the apartment look likely to be hers without looking like she lived in a big kooky outfit. It also resembled a real apartment in angle and height more than say, a stage set, like Friends' purple painted "Monica" apartment with turquoise kitchen and consistent bright overhead lighting. Carrie had windows and lamps and all directions, and didn't have to be overemphasized. It had enough information to look like it was her apartment without distracting.

I don't know what purpose green serves, but it was also a popular color in the world (still is), and I think blue or yellow or pink would say something different than they wanted to say. Those colors are all a lot happier than green.

posted by K T G on 2008-05-27 15:37:11
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Carries apartment is functional. It supports her lifestyle. The understated color is serene which supports her working (writing) there. The furniture is somewhat spare and definitely unconventional. It reveals her devotion to fashion that she would rather have a wall of bookshelves for fashion magazines, than a sofa or two for lounging, entertaining. I don’t think she owned a television. Her closet is so large, and ideally compartmentalized, that she doesn’t need so much in the bedroom. Her small vanity always surprised me. The kitchen has very little of use in it, because she only uses it to store take out.

Carrie’s place is simple because she needs it to be a retreat from all the full-bore energy outside. It is simple because she is all about what’s going on outside that apartment. And it is simple because she is an average New York City renter of modest means. If she hadn’t lucked into rent control, there’d be more people in that pad or she would located in Washington Heights.

posted by Lady J on 2008-05-27 17:00:57
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Speaking of SATC, does anyone know where Miranda's bedsheets are from? (the pale pink ones)

posted by Anokha on 2008-05-27 21:44:06
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Being from Melbourne Australia, I always thought it was a New York thing. I drew this conclusion from watching SATC, Seinfeld and Friends. (Lucky I'm not a scientist) All the walls seem to be a variation on grey... So I guess it's not a NY thing then?

posted by TaniaTingel on 2008-05-28 07:08:45
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The color is about photography and setting off the actors against it.

But one thing I haven't see anyone mention: That big bookcase that is by Carrie's front door, they used to have at ABC Carpet & Home. It was $2400, and didn't come apart into pieces, and there is no way in hell that that bookcase could ever have been brought into a walkup apartment, like the one she lived in.

posted by GothamTomato on 2008-05-30 12:14:21
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Ah but the NEW carrie's apartment - painted BRIGHT royal BLUE (if I recall correctly) saw it last night :)

posted by roccos on 2008-05-30 14:44:17
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Okay, this is only on-topic if the topic is what flatters people's complexions, but I've always thought Samantha looked terrible as a blonde! It doesn't work with her skin at all. She always looked so pretty as a brunette, but I guess they were going for the whole "blonde bombshell" thing.

posted by STH on 2008-05-31 18:29:42
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I would love to know what paint color they used for Carrie's apartment in the movie - love that blue!

posted by mandre1108 on 2008-06-02 09:27:32
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In case anyone else is interested, I found an article that gives the paint color! It's Benjamin Moore Electric Blue. http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/home/chi-sex_city_set_screen_0601jun01,0,553371.story

posted by mandre1108 on 2008-06-03 14:58:50
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I NEED that mirrored vanity that Carrie has in her apartment after she redecorates. I have been searching and searching. Please, does anyone know where I can find it? I MUST have it! :) Thanks!

posted by tnbanks30 on 2008-06-04 15:44:18
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