Cafe Girl Chronicles

Pick a color, any color!

Yes, I think there is. Paint Industry Research has confirmed what we, as consumers, already knew. We are overwhelmed by too many color choices.

We always think we want choice, and yet when presented with a myriad of options we either can’t make a choice and walk away with nothing or we make a choice and berate ourselves all the way home thinking we made the wrong choice – the wrong color, the wrong bedspread, the wrong dress, the wrong man.

I recently experienced this phenomena myself while at a trade show in Istanbul. Having finished my sales calls I found myself with enough time on my hands to make a quick trip into the city. My customers made all kinds of wonderful recommendations, and I ended up visiting the Blue Mosque, the Haggia Sofia and the Grand Bazaar.

I explained to one colleague that I was a little reluctant to visit the Grand Bazaar because I had been there before and had found it an exhausting and exhaustive place to shop. With so much to see, my senses had been overwhelmed and I’d even gotten lost in its maze of passageways when a crush of people moved me in a direction I’d no intention of taking.

Sensing my angst, my colleague asked me what I liked. I told her scarves so she wrote down the name of a shop that specialized in beautiful scarves.

It’s called Bedesten, and it’s located in the old part of the Grand Bazaar. The shop is like a large walk-in closet with floor to ceiling cubbyholes of every kind of scarf in every color and texture imaginable. As I turned around slowly I felt like I was in a life-size Kaleidoscope. I felt dizzy from the effect of all of the color and giddy with anticipation.

The young proprietor walked me through the types of scarfs on offer – from expensive and sumptuous silk to pashmina, wool and, of course, cheaper synthetics. After I had a glass of customary (apple) tea (the Turkish people are the epitome of hospitality) the selling process began. The proprietor pulled scarf after scarf off the shelf and draped them across the Middle Eastern-style coffee table.

“Stop! Stop!” I put up my hands.

He gave me a puzzled look – didn’t I like the scarves?

Like the scarves! I told him I loved them, but if he continued in this manner, it would be impossible for me to choose a single scarf. I told him that we would have to limit the choices; otherwise I was afraid I would leave empty handed.

He did, and I decided to buy five scarves – one for myself, and four more as gifts – that were all a combination of silk and pashmina, I asked him to show me just two scarves in color families that I knew would be complimentary to my friends and me. Faced with a choice of only two scarves in blue, green, purple, red and orange, I found it easy to pick the perfect ones.

After a bit of bargaining we fixed a price and I went away happy, having acquired a beautiful selection of scarves and first-hand knowledge that corroborated what research tells us – sometimes there is such a thing as too much color.

photo: © istockphoto.com/PaulVinten