I am trying to weed out eveything grey in my life; at least a good portion of it. Since the last few years before the millennium the world around be has increasingly been taken over by a greyness; grey paint, gerey furnture hues in off white, drift wood, slate, charcoal, exhaust, smog, béton brut,... I strongly suspect it's linked to a parallel increase in in use of antidepressants since the 1990s
Some like the early Japanese zigzaggers. Personally I'm not entirely convinced, but they are often all metal, and that's always a pluss in my book. My favorites tend to be Swiss and German models; Bernina, Gritzner, Adler, Dürkopp. Most of them have one or two plastic gears. Some of the concrete grey Pfaffs are very nice, 1950s to early 60s.
I have to admit, I lean towards what was just before mid centry, the cast iron zigzaggers like Bernina 117, (Pfaff 130 I have yet to get to know). There is a similar green Husqvarna
. The cast iron zigzaggers I have my eye on were made a bit into the 50s, but were all models introduced before WWII.
I suspect the grey color is more industrial and utilitarian than Japanese, but I'm open to any refinement. As mentioned the early grey Pfaff zigzaggers were introduced around the same time. The mechanical engineering is probably borrowed from German models too. Elna had one of the earliest double layer cam stitch patterns, but I think a few German makers like Gritzner and Adler introduced similar features around the same time. The early Japanese zigzaggers are pretty close to these in apparence and function.