Sometimes even quite, you know, colours that I don't love the look of have fabulous stories behind them,

and the stories can sometimes make me just as happy as the appearance of the colour. So for me,

that's my answer. I don't know whether Lucia has a very different one. No, but you know,

it's strange, but today I'm black and white.

That is strange. We're talking about colour and you're both in monochrome.

Welcome to If Jewels Could Talk. I'm Carol Walton, the voice of jewellery, an author, broadcaster,

and the woman who initiated the role of Jewelry editor at magazines like Tattler and British Vogue.

This is a podcast for everyone.

For people who do like jewelry, for people who don't realize they like jewelry,

and anyone intrigued by fascinating facts, new ideas and forgotten histories.

So please join me as I tell sparkly tales meeting all sorts of

people delving into four centuries of jewellery culture and investigate what's happening now.

Today we're talking about the importance of colour.

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most, wrote the Victorian

artist and critic John Ruskin in 1851.

Colours do provoke a conscious or subconscious reaction in us for no discernible reason. It's an emotional

reaction who doesn't have a favourite colour. Color translates to us as life, energy and passion.

So it's hardly surprising after a year when life has felt so limited that we're all craving

colour. I'm so delighted today to be joined by Cassia Sinclair,

who's the best-selling author of the book The Secret Lives of Colour. And also I'm joined by

Lucia Silvestri, the creative director of Bulgari, known for so many years for their extraordinary colour combinations

in stones. In particular, we're going to unravel the history of blue and why it's the world's

...