Blue is all X, all manly, right from the start, declaring “It’s a boy!” in pastel, baby-friendly hues. Marlon Brando made blue bad, wearing his fitted jeans with a muscle-baring tee and a no care attitude, while Jane Birkin was sexy, feminine, classic, waving the (red white and) blue of her French home-away-from home in a pair of Levi 501s.

Blue is the immensity of the ocean. It’s the danger of the unknown, the exhilarating thought that there is still opportunity for discovery. Blue is the clarity found on a bright summer’s day, it’s the cocoon-like comfort that the sky, in all its enormity, can provide.

Blue is more than a colour, it’s an emotion, a feeling, something you can catch. Lula Mae got the Blues before she became Holly and started getting the Mean Reds instead.

Blue can be ordinary, it can be every day, but it can be a little left of centre too. Blue is the colour of art, of music, of the Deep South’s Blues, popularised in the 1920s and revived sixty years later by a pair of suited Brothers. Joni Mitchell named her seminal album Blue, and a young Mick Jagger set out to be a Blues singer.  

Blue is brave and rebellious, classic and demure. It’s the discipline of a navy-clad soldier and the freedom of a country child in worn overalls.

Blue is eternal.