ask mrs. Exeter; Red rules so many runways this season.

Question: Correct me if I am wrong, but am I seeing a lot of red these days, unfurled on young actresses traipsing the red carpet and on elected ladies in the Congress and Senate? My mother must have been "flapper-phobic": She put the fear of wearing bright red in me, either clothing or makeup, especially after a certain age. I thought red went out with the 1980s. Why is it popular again, Mrs. Exeter, and what is your advice for wearing it?

Answer: My advice for wearing red, like my advice for anything and anyone of a certain age, is all things in moderation. Red wine? Red dresses? Moderation. And if it doesn't agree with you at all, then abstain. There is always honor in refusal.

As I get older, I find most strong colors-red, green, blue, black, and even white-if they are not the "right" color, will drain my complexion rather than add to it. I wear color cautiously, but I do wear it.

For instance, I acquired a lovely raspberry-hued, thirties-style wool-crepe-and-gauze dress from Roland Mouret's spring collection. And this winter Marc Jacobs sent me a divine scarlet coat, but the attention-getting color is softened by the addition of a silver-fox collar. (Lee Radziwill, whose 1974 book One Special Summer has just been reprinted this month by Rizzoli, has the same coat, so I am in good company-as long as we do not wear it in the same place at the same time and someone thinks to yell, "Fire!")

Why red now, why red again? A full discussion of the psychology of color would take too long. Suffice it to say, red means many things to many people. Red is love and anger. It is power and aggression in some shades and promiscuity in others, like the scarlet satin robe the playwright Tennessee Williams imagined Blanche DuBois wore in private. Red is also warmth and cheer, but somehow formal, strong, and royal, the sort of spirit Nancy Reagan hoped to express in her White House phase. Like so many women, Nancy found red to be a happy color, bright as a newly painted smile. Barbara Walters, Laura Bush, and the Duchess of Cornwall all enjoy wearing red these days for similar reasons.

In the nineteenth century, red was popular for parlors and rugs. In modern clothing, red has been particularly in fashion since World War II and the advent of patriotic fabrics in "flag-red" and "victory-blue." It is not Mrs. Exeter's place to provide sociopolitical analysis, but Miuccia Prada has been widely quoted lately saying it is time women go "back to the streets of the world, showing anger and being a little bit savage, to be ready for life." (Wear red?) Certainly, red now is akin to hormonal replacement, if not an entire antidote to all the demure, ladylike pink we have seen in recent years.

Did you know that scientists have concluded that athletes in the 2004 Olympics who wore red won 55 percent of the time? In northern India, brides wear red to ward off evil spirits. The metaphysical author Carmen Harra, popular with the fashion set, never hesitates recommending that