Focus Week: rolling out the red carpet for – the colour red

I’ve had the coming week marked in red on my calendar for a long time. The lifestyle team will be focusing on the colour red. Starting off over six months ago and adorned with rose-coloured glasses, they set out to strive for nothing less than the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The grey daily routine soon caught up with the team, sometimes plunging them into dramatic black holes. Although it never got to the point of wanting to wave a white flag, many a failed interview request, shattered idea or sheer wordless rejection could only be endured with black humour.

And while the silver lining would soon be seen on the horizon for some projects, some team members were secretly green with envy because everything was golden elsewhere.

But no matter how colourful the team may have been, there’s nothing left for me to do today but roll out the red carpet for seven colourful stories from the worlds of sports, fashion, beauty, health and design, with a red thread running through it all:

Siri Schubert talks to a psychologist about why the colour red is associated with so many emotions. And why merely looking at it can trigger physical reactions:

Pia Seidel follows the trail of the colour red through Swiss design history. Although many designers steer clear of the intense primary colour, it’s still left a clear mark on some cult brands in Switzerland:

Anna Sandner wonders why red stands for both appetising delicacy and poisonous danger in the plant world. However, the calculated risk of reaching for a red fruit is well worth it for health reasons:

Laura Scholz doesn’t really wear Air Jordans, but she’s still interested in why the world’s most successful sneaker actually achieved its fame and how its predecessor made the NBA see red:

Patrick Bardelli sometimes pushes himself until he’s red in the face on his gravel bike. And even though doping in cycling was once almost a necessity, he’s more enthusiastic about the medically valuable possibilities of autologous blood therapy:

Natalie Hemengül actually knows a thing or two about the colour red in the beauty world. To explore the story behind the formerly exclusive and now extremely popular perfume Baccarat Rouge 540, she nevertheless forges across new territory:

Stephanie Vinzens not only takes you on a journey to the beginnings of fashion, but also to the dawn of human artistic creation. Both involved red. The fact that she likes to dress herself in a bright red wool coat puts her in a royal line of ancestors, so to speak: