How To Choose The Right Color Palette For Your Wardrobe
HEATHER HOPE owns the House of Colour franchise in Denver and her aim is to help clients cultivate confidence through color and style analysis. A Colorado native, she has 20+ years of experience developing and executing public relations and marketing campaigns in the corporate and non-profit sectors. This includes extensive public speaking, training, and media relations experience. She earned a BA in Journalism from Colorado State University and a MBA from the University of Colorado. This month, Heather gives advice on how to choose the right color palette for your wardrobe.
Hopefully you experienced the DAM’s blockbuster Claude Monet exhibition earlier this year. Beyond artistic inspiration, have you considered Monet or other world-class artists for your wardrobe inspiration?Monet is famous for his use of cool, blue-based watercolors. Every time I help a client see that she has a cool skin undertone and muted coloring, I encourage her to put a Monet print in her closet for inspiration! Wearing those hues will integrate with her natural features and bring her into focus. She’ll look simply elegant and vibrant.
As we shift into spring and then summer, it’s the perfect time to evaluate your wardrobe and vow to incorporate more color. In doing so, consider world-class artists for inspiration and work to create visual harmony by evaluating your natural coloring. As a result, you will have a closet that inspires. You will love your clothes, and they will love you back, making you look happier and healthier. Every piece will coordinate and play well together too, making dressing a creative expression that is easier and more enjoyable.
The Bauhaus School of Art: 100-Year-Old Seasonal Color Wheel
Johannes Itten, a professor at the famous Bauhaus School of Art in Germany in the 1920s, was a true pioneer of color theory and is famous for this rendition of the color wheel. He divided colors in this way because he observed that – except for true/primary red – all colors either have a yellow base to them (they are warm and are noted on the top half of this wheel). Or they have a blue base to them (they are cool and are noted on the bottom half of this wheel).
Itten sub-divided the warm colors into bright, happy, vibrant colors he named “Spring” and muted, softened, earthy colors he called “Autumn.” He sub-divided the cool colors into bright, saturated, bold colors he called “Winter” and muted, smokey, delicate colors he called “Summer.” He also observed that artists tend to paint in one of these four “seasons” based on their desire for visual harmony. Back to Monet, his cool and muted masterpieces fit right into the “Summer” quadrant.
Itten also observed that all people have a personal coloring, which places them in one of these four palettes. Your personal coloring is based on your eye color, natural hair color, and – most critically – your skin undertone, which is either cool (blue-based) or warm (yellow-based.)
Artists from the Bauhaus School started to work in film, where they applied this color theory in Hollywood. With the magic of color, they could make a leading lady look more elegant, glamorous, visible, or make that same actress appear sick, tired, old.
Seasonal color analysis – understanding how you fit into one of the four quadrants in this color wheel – gained popularity in the 1980s with the book “Color Me Beautiful” and the launch of the House of Colour franchise in the U.K. Over the last decade House Colour, which has served over 500,000 clients worldwide with color analysis and has marked 35 years in business, has expanded into the U.S. with nearly 40 franchise owners across the country.
Seasonal Color Analysis: DIY vs Trained Expert
I stumbled across seasonal color analysis nearly two years ago, as I was building a capsule wardrobe. I wanted to understand which colors were best for my natural coloring and move beyond basic black. At the same time, I had read a “pro-tip” that a bold red lipstick would elevate my look, but I didn’t know if that red should be warm or cool, to suit my natural coloring.
After holding paint chips from Home Depot up against my face, looking at the veins on my wrist, trying an app to “find my season” online, and feeling overwhelmed in the lipstick section at Sephora, I decided I needed an outside expert. My DIY attempts had simply failed.
As it turns out, your season is best determined in person, without makeup, in natural light, when a trained expert “drapes” you in a series of precision-dyed silks. This helps her (and you) see if your skin undertone is warm or cool and if your coloring is muted or clear.
Your skin reacts to the colors near your face in a surprising optical illusion. Each color is either working for you or against you. It’s having a positive effect or a negative one, and this becomes even more apparent with age. When a color coordinates with your natural coloring, you will look brighter, healthier, younger. Conversely, the wrong color can make you look dull, tired, or drab.
For many, it’s hard to be objective in assessing which colors are best for you. But if you rock warm, yellow-based colors, you may belong in the fall or spring quadrant. On the other hand, if you look fab in cool, blue-based shade, you may be a winter or summer.
Helping People See Themselves in a New Light, and in Their Best Colors
The experience of understanding my season and wearing my best colors was so positive that I launched the House of Colour franchise here in Denver last year. I appreciate that seasonal color analysis allows me to show people their natural beauty.
I’m always amazed by how clients can look positively radiant in their WOW colors, those that harmonize with their natural coloring. I often introduce them to completely new colors that they never realized make them look stunning. In their best colors – and without the help of makeup – their faces glow, their cheeks blush, their lips look flush, their eyes sparkle – just as nature and world-class artists like Monet had intended.
Website - https://www.houseofcolour.com/stylists-directory/heather-hope-denver-colorado
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Email – heather.hope@houseofcolour.com