What colors should you wear?
To answer that question appropriately, you must first determine which season you are. The undertone of your skin and the amount of melanin and keratin in your complexion determine the types of colors you look best in. If you haven’t read it yet, now is a good time to go back and look at the previous blog post about determining your season or sign up for the Free Color Course.
Cool or Warm
Here’s the basic gist. If you have cool undertones, you are either a summer or a winter. Warm undertones, you are either spring or an autumn.
A complexion with cool undertones and high contrast between your skin, eyes and hair indicates a winter. Low contrast and cool makes you a summer.
Warm undertones and hair that is naturally on the dark end of the spectrum, places you in the autumn category. If on the lighter end of the spectrum, you are a spring.
However, most people don’t fall in one of the absolute categories, but have a dominant category and a secondary or blend. For example, both an absolute winter and a winter blended with spring will use the same color fan, but they will use colors from the fan differently. This is just a very overly simplified explanation.
Determine Your Season
The best way to determine your season is to have a color draping by a professional color consultant. If you live near the 73533, visit my services page to book your consultation. If this isn’t an option for you, don’t forget about the free color course.
How can you know if a color looks good on you?
How to:
If you can’t find a local color consultant, you can do a DIY draping. It needs to be done in good lighting– natural if possible. You should also be free of any color cosmetics or tinted moisturizers. It is said that people pick the best color for themselves 50% of the time so it’s highly likely that you have at least some of the right colors in your closet.
Cool vs. Warm
To tell if a color has a warm undertone, it will slightly lean toward another primary color. For example, a warm blue leans slightly green because it has a little yellow added to it. A warm red is a little orange because it has yellow added to it. A warm yellow looks very golden or a little orangey because it has had red added to it.
What’s in your closet?
Many pastel colors in your closet indicates a summer. Pure hues or shades of cool undertone colors show you are a winter. If you have warm undertone colors that are bright, you are probably a spring, but warm colors that are more earthy or deep in nature signify an autumn.
. . . or if you were like me before I knew what I was doing, your closet may be split down the middle of your season and your blend. At least half, if not more of my closet was made up of winter colors. Partly because they looked pretty good on me and the other, I think, is that winter colors are over represented in the fashion industry, but that’s a rant for another day.
You will most likely have a mix of the color categories described above. If all your colors fall into one category, that’s your season, but most likely they won’t. Pull out a few from each category. If you have different shades, tones, and tints of pink, peach and coral, pull them all out as well as any other color that you have various shade, tints and tones of as well as the following (if you don’t have any black or stark white in your closet, then you are not a winter):
Black
Stark white
Off-white or cream
Let’s get started
In front of a mirror, without any makeup, in good lighting, drape the garment across you just under your chin. When you wear the correct colors, your face will look vibrant. Your wrinkles, lines, dark spots and blemishes will become less noticeable. Wearing the wrong colors can make you look bruised, sunburned, washed out, tired and older.
Notice the difference? If you can’t right away, don’t worry. It takes practice. If you need help, snap a picture and enlist the help of a trusted friend or send me an email.
I’m sure you’ll start to see a pattern emerge. If you look fantastic in black and stark white, you’re a winter. There is a slight chance that you may have a strong blend with winter and be another season.
If a color doesn’t bring out the best in you, free yourself from feeling like you have to wear it. Donate or sell anything that doesn’t flatter you. It’s likely that you don’t wear it often anyway.
The one color that people have the hardest time freeing themselves of is black. Someone, somewhere in the fashion industry told everybody that black looks great on everyone. I don’t find that to be true. But, don’t let me convince you, do a draping for yourself and pay attention to what you see in the mirror and if black isn’t flattering on you, let it go. You don’t have to look less than your best ever again. There are so many other wonderful colors out there that look amazing on you.
Why is color the most important design element?
I believe that color is the most important design element. “Why?” you may ask. It is usually the first thing that is noticed. When considering how to combine all of the ingredients in our style recipe, color will usually have the most impact.
What is color blocking?
Unless you always wear one solid color from head to toe, you’re already doing it. Color blocking can be part of a garments construction if the garment itself is made of different colors stitched together. It can also be achieve by wearing one garment of one color with a garment of another color.
How do I use color blocking for my figure?
Think of how colors behave. Which ones recede and which ones advance? Place a variety of different colors in the same proportion together. Now close your eyes. When you open them, note which color your eyes go to first, then second and so on. It’s a great test that you can do not only with color but we’ll use it with the other “style ingredients” as well. It comes in real handy when you’re trying to decide which is more dominant, the leopard print blouse or the bright red pants you’re wearing. It’s so simple and free. I call this exercise “The Eye Test”.
You’re essentially clearing your focus, by closing your eyes and looking at the composition with a fresh perspective, much as other people do when they see you for the first time. The eye follows the order of dominance without even thinking about it. The dominant color is the one that is going to draw your eye first, so make it point to your best features. The eye goes down the line from the most dominant color to subdominant, subordinate and so on.
Next up we’re talking about proportion. Think of it as the quantity of each of our style ingredients. Your proportion and how you use the style ingredients will be determined by both your body type and your personal preference. Follow the color section of my style-recipe board on pinterest for more ideas and visual references about how to use color like a pro.
Would you like to learn more about how to use color to flatter your body type? Check out the DRESS FOR YOUR BODY TYPE course.
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