I have always had a thing about colour. Probably more than is entirely sensible.
Part of that comes from being a photographer. When you spend a lot of time looking through a camera, you start noticing colour everywhere. Not just the obvious things. The colour of a wall behind somebody. The way a particular blue looks completely different in morning light. A red dress that works beautifully against one background and looks completely wrong against another.
Sometimes I notice colour before I notice anything else.
And I think that's probably why I have always loved Yayoi Kusama.
Her work is impossible to ignore. The dots. The pumpkins. The mirrors. The colours. And, of course, that incredible red wig.
There is something about her work that feels very definite to me. You know when you are looking at a Kusama. You don't need somebody standing beside you explaining it.
That is quite a thing to achieve.
Kusama died in August 2026 at the age of 97, leaving behind an extraordinary body of work and, for me personally, an enormous amount of inspiration. She became one of the best-known contemporary artists in the world, although that recognition didn't exactly arrive overnight.
Her story is actually one of the things I find most interesting.
She arrived in New York in the late 1950s, at a time when the art world was heavily dominated by men. Her repetitive nets and dots weren't necessarily what people were looking for, and for a long time her work was overlooked.
She carried on anyway.
That matters to me.
Kusama had experienced vivid hallucinations from childhood and described seeing patterns spreading across surfaces and rooms. Instead of simply trying to shut those experiences away, she painted them. Again and again.
The same ideas appeared in paintings, sculptures, mirrors, fashion and installations. She kept returning to them and developing them.
I think there is something quite brave about that.
Two women who weren't interested in blending in
Most of us probably change our minds all the time because we worry about what other people think. We see something that's fashionable and decide we like it. We see something that's unusual and wonder whether we'd actually have the nerve to wear it.
Kusama didn't seem particularly interested in doing that. And neither did Niki de Saint Phalle.
Saint Phalle was born in France in 1930, the year after Kusama was born in Japan.
Their lives were obviously very different, and their work was different too, but I think they shared something important.
Neither woman seemed remotely interested in making herself smaller.
Saint Phalle's childhood included abuse, which she later confronted through her work.
Her famous Nanas became huge, colourful female figures that were exuberant, joyful and impossible to ignore.
I love that about them. They are playful, but they aren't silly. They take up space.
And that seems to me to be quite an important distinction.
There was an exhibition called Inner Child which brought the work of Kusama and Saint Phalle together and looked at the way childhood and imagination influenced both women.
It makes sense when you look at their work.
Kusama's dots and mirrored rooms can initially seem almost playful, but there is much more going on underneath them. Repetition. Identity. Infinity. Obsession. The relationship between one person and everything around them.
Saint Phalle's work has its own history and meaning, but the colour is impossible to separate from the feeling of it.
That is what I keep coming back to.
Colour changes things.
It changes how something feels before you have even worked out why. And that is something we think about a lot at LUC8K.
Not because there is a correct colour for a particular person. There absolutely isn't.
It is much more personal than that. Someone can look 
at a yellow bag and think, absolutely not. Someone else can look at exactly the same bag and think, where do I sign?
I know which person I would rather be.
Yellow
Take yellow.
A Kusama pumpkin is yellow and black. It's enormous and it isn't remotely shy.
You can see one from across a room.
That combination of yellow and black is part of what makes it so striking. The yellow catches your eye and the black gives it weight.
I love photographing strong yellow for much the same reason. It reacts to light in a way that softer colours don't always do. Put it next to black and it becomes stronger. Put it next to white and suddenly it has a completely different feeling.
And yes, I love yellow. There. I've said it.
But I also understand why someone might not.
A bright yellow handbag isn't the easiest thing in the world to wear. It isn't going to quietly sit in the background and get along with absolutely everything in your wardrobe.
But perhaps that's exactly the point.
If you choose it, you are choosing it because you like it. Not because everyone else does.
I think the best things we own are often like that. They don't necessarily make sense to anybody else. They just make sense to us.
Black
Then there is black.
Black is supposed to be the safe choice, isn't it?
Classic. Dependable. Easy.
But I don't really think black is boring at all.
One of the things I notice when photographing colours is how much they depend on what is around them. Black can make another colour look completely different. It gives bright colours somewhere to push against.
Look at Kusama's work and you see this everywhere. Black and white. Bright colour. Repetition. Contrast. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is actually remove something.
That applies to clothes too.
You don't always need another colour, another detail, another embellishment. Sometimes the right black bag with the right outfit is enough.
And when there is something personalised on it, perhaps something that means something only to you, that's enough too.
That's one of the things I love about LUC8K.
The personal details don't necessarily have to be obvious.
An airport code might mean nothing to the person standing next to you and everything to you.
A number might be completely meaningless to everyone else.
But you know.
That's enough.
White
White is completely different.
People sometimes think white is simple. It isn't.
As a photographer, I know this particularly well because white changes constantly depending on the light around it. White in bright sunlight isn't the same white you see in shadow. Texture changes it. The colour beside it changes it. Even the background can change how white looks.
Kusama's early Infinity Net paintings are interesting for a similar reason. The marks themselves are simple and repetitive, but when you see them together they become something else.
You start looking. And then you keep looking. I think personal style can work that way too.
It doesn't always have to shout.
Sometimes the thing that makes an outfit work is the shape of the bag, or a combination of colours that somebody else might not even notice, or one tiny personalised detail.
That's still individuality, and it doesn't have to announce itself.
And then there is red.
Red
Red is harder to ignore.
It has energy. It can be glamorous. Or romantic. Or dramatic. Or slightly rebellious. It depends on the red and it depends on the person wearing it.
Kusama obviously understood the power of red. Her wig alone became part of her visual identity.
And Saint Phalle understood colour in a completely different but equally powerful way.
I think red can be quite interesting when you are talking about handbags because somebody who normally sticks to black, beige or navy can suddenly feel very different carrying a red one.
The bag hasn't changed them. But perhaps it changes how they feel. And that can be enough.
We all have those moments when we choose the sensible thing and those other moments when we choose something that makes us feel slightly more visible.
I like the second kind.
Perhaps because I spend so much time looking at people through a camera, I notice those little changes.
Someone stands differently when they feel good. They hold themselves differently. They look different. And sometimes it really can start with something as simple as colour.
It isn't really about the colour
I could carry on talking about colours for hours.
There are so many more.
But I don't think Kusama or Saint Phalle leave us with a simple lesson about choosing bright colours.
It's something bigger than that.
Both women found a way of seeing the world that was very much their own.
They stuck with it. They developed it. And eventually everybody else started paying attention.
That is probably what I admire most. Neither of them tried to become less interesting in order to be more acceptable.
They didn't take away the strange bits. They didn't make everything easier for everybody else. They kept making the work they wanted to make.
And eventually the world caught up. I think there is something in that for all of us.
We spend an awful lot of time being told what we should like. What colour and what shape is fashionable. What we should be wearing this season.
What we should be buying. And sometimes I just think, wear the yellow bag. If you love it, why not? If red makes you happy, wear red. If you have worn black for twenty years and you still love it, carry on. And if white is your thing, then enjoy it.
There isn't a correct answer. That's the whole point.
Colour is personal.
For me, that is why Kusama's work continues to inspire me. The colours are unmistakable, but so is the person behind them.
You know it is hers.
And I suppose that is what I want from anything I wear or carry too. I want it to feel like mine.
Not necessarily because everybody else loves it.
Perhaps, it’s because the best choices aren't always the obvious ones. The best choices are always intentional.
Sometimes you just look at something and think:
That's me.
And that's probably the best reason there is.
With love,
Denice Faye Hough
LUC8K's Colour Expert and Yayoi Kusama's Biggest Fan
Be inspired by our stories and discover which colours are absolutely perfect for who you are this Autumn at LUC8K.com.
