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The Age of Silver
Ten years ago, all the important things in our lives were clearly color-coded. Televisions were black, kettles were white, computers were beige. Cars were most popularly red. And lasting love - the sort we confirmed with a band, at least - was gold.
Now take a quick mental journey around your home. Start in the living room. What color is your television? If you have bought it in the past decade, the chances are that it will be eyeing you sleekly with a silvery sheen. Your hi-fi, DVD player and laptop probably match, and perhaps the same metallic gleam is peeping from the feet of the sofa, the base of the lamp.
Move into the kitchen and few households will not find three objects among the oven, fridge, juicer, microwave, electronic scales, taps and waste basket that are silver, whether stainless steel, chrome or sparkling plastic. Even so-called "white goods" have succumbed: department stores throughout the country are selling silver-colored washing machines by Bosch, Siemens, Dyson and Miele. And while once upon a time 40% of bathroom taps sold by MFI were gold, now 90% are chrome. A stealthy silver revolution has taken hold, sneaking into every corner of the home, re-coloring our daily lives glittering grey.
Earlier this month, Coca-Cola reissued Diet Coke in a limited-edition iridescent grey bottle in order to remind drinkers, a spokesperson explains, "that it's coming up to the party season". Christmas used to be red and gold (white if you were classy). Now it too appears to have bristled into silver.
"I've been saying it on a constant basis for the past I don't know how many years," says the design expert Peter York, who has had a kitchen full of stainless steel since a "fearfully modern" refit in 1999. "But the silver we're talking about isn't the color of silver silver. It's the color of a sort of magic cyber-metal - silverised plastic. Just looking around my room - and I am the least digital of beings - I'm surrounded by bits of mock-silver silveriness. In fact, the house is full of it. The world is silver because it is the color of an acceptable digi-world."
That may be true, but what is most surprising about the silverisation of our lives is that the grey glow has spread beyond the home, beyond electronic goods. Three years ago, the first silver police cars appeared in London, a decision not of style but of economics, a spokesperson insists (the resale value of silver cars exceeds that of white cars by approximately 10%). In 2005, silver accounted for 31% of all new car sales - 9% more than blue, the second most popular color. Neither have those opting for the greener route of a commute by bicycle escaped: just count all those shiny grey helmets. Metropolitan police on two wheels are riding silver Smith & Wessons. Old-fashioned standbys from the Corby trouser press to the Breville sandwich toaster have had a silver makeover. And at the Sheffield Assay Office, one of the four centres in England where jewellery gets sent to be hallmarked, "everything going through here is white", says assay master Ashley Carson - if not silver itself then white gold or platinum.
Sitting behind his desk at the Krystle boutique in Hatton Garden, London's jewellery quarter, Simon Davies is flicking through a Cartier brochure. Of the 50 or so pieces photographed on its pages, there are only two yellow gold rings. Davies, who was a setter of jewellery for 25 years before deciding to run his own shop, estimates that 95% of the wedding and engagement rings he now sells are white gold (a gold alloy that appears silver).
"I've been married for 15 years," he says. "In 1991, I made my wife yellow gold rings. Earlier this year, for a present, I changed them to platinum. It was what she asked for for her anniversary. I personally find yellow a warmer metal, but you've got to enjoy what you wear."
So why have so many of our belongings become swathed in this steely sheen?