Tangerine skies.. Tangerine blossoms, so I thought while wearing my tangerine trench coat in the Netherlands. I had no idea how much the Dutch would be attracted to me ... for my coat. I learned soon that they favor 'that color' because of the Orange Family. My face lit up with "but you don't even have orange groves here."

 

The Prince of Orange, Prins van Oranje in Dutch, is scheduled to become the king of Holland on 30 April 2009. He is supposed to be an expert in Climate Change. His biography brings up Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand's interest in international water management issues. That is perhaps a comfort to royalists everywhere but just a Prince Scientist to others.

 

The prince, who can be seen in public wearing an orange vest, is a direct descendant of Anne, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange, the eldest daughter of British King George II. Regardless of the prince or his queen mother, the Dutch are already climate-savvy. They are proposing for EU funding this month a Dutch satellite to study climate change - who knows why? There seems to be many climate satellites over our heads right now.

 

Prince of Orange is a title of nobility, originally associated with the Principality of Orange in the Rhone valley of France. The house of Orange owned the sovereign principality until 1544 when it became the house of Orange-Nassau. Its tricolor flag was orange, white, and blue, the colors of William of Orange, a Dutch prince. I read that red replaced in the 17th century the orange as a flag color, because the orange dye used on the flag turned red after exposure to the sun.

 

I think this color switch was political because of the contemporary cultural and technical complexities in Europe.

 

Culture -  The English law would not allow just anybody wear this color in the Elizabethan era. The so-called Sumptuary Laws dictated the social and other requirements such as rank, wealth, religion for dress and clothing. In 1517, Henry VIII extended these laws to restrict beyond dress and clothing to ownership of certain foods and number of dishes in one's meal. For example, a citizen who made around 40 to 100 pounds a year could eat only three dishes in a meal, whereas a cardinal would be allowed to eat, the most, nine dishes. A "dish" was defined as equivalent to one swan, peacock, partridge, woodcock, four plovers, six cardinals, eight quail, and twelve larks or other small birds. Oysters were very cheap and were not controlled foods: any person of any class was permitted to eat as much as they wanted. If Sumptuary Laws were not obeyed, there were fines, the loss of property, title, even life. Such was the case in Renaissance England.

 

Technology - Madder root (Rubia tinctorum) was used in Europe to produce cloth dyed in various shades of red including orange, russet, pink, coral, light red, dark red, and brown. The orange color was not colorfast and orange clothes were worn by the lower classes. People who were allowed to wear russet during the Elizabethan era, as decreed by the English Sumptuary Laws, were only the upper classes. Strange fact is that the unstable orange became, over time, red, the color for upper classes. A color fixative like 25% vinegar solution could have preserved their class distinctions. But did they know that?

There one finds the excuse to 'replace' orange color in the Dutch flag with the inevitable red -- Can you imagine that this issue might have led also to the eventual demise of Sumptuary Laws in England?

 

Current technology allows Prince of Orange to wear a colorfast orange vest. The Dutch also wear orange dress and clothing on the Queen's birthday. This celebration happens on April 29 or 30 even though her real date is in January. Year 2009 promises two days in a row for orange, on the Queen's birthday and the King's coronation the next day. Would they be throwing oranges at their Prince during his crowning ceremony?