How to Navigate Your Color Space
Now that you know your 12 Tone Color Space, what’s next? Unveiling your colors is the easy part, figuring out what to do with your book of colors is the problematical part. Are you supposed to purge every garment in your closet that does not belong in your recommended color space? My answer is, “NO”! What if some of your recently revealed colors do not gel with your style persona? And what if you just don’t like the colors that theoretically suit you? Lastly, do you have to dress yourself in every hue in your color palette? I’m going to tackle all your concerns and advise you on, my point of view, on how to utilize your book of colors. Disclaimer; my viewpoint may differ from other professional color analysts, image consultants, or stylists. My #1 objective is to remind you that your color analysis results are just one of many tools from your, Invent Your Image Style Solutions arsenal – “Customize YOUR Look”, that you can use to identify your personal style and build a wardrobe that perfectly fits you and your lifestyle. Choose who’s P.O.V. or prospective that suits you best and Go For It!!! Bend the guidelines or follow them to the “T”, whatever works best for you.
Invent Your Image’s 3 BASIC Guidelines
Guideline #1
Utilize, your Invent Your Image Book of Colors, as a Guide NOT a Book of Policies!
Your color palette is NOT a fail-proof blueprint. Why isn’t it? Because the 12 color tones are neither exclusive nor 100% comprehensive, meaning that not everyone will fit neatly in one color space. Why shouldn’t you utilize your book of colors like your very own personal bible? Even if your complexion does fit well in one of the color types, it would be a huge shame to just ignore the rest of the color spectrum/wheel. The other palettes, especially your color space’s neighboring one, offer a whole host of other shades to explore that might suit you just as well and they can enable you in building a more varied, yet still cohesive color palette for your wardrobe. Bottom line: Use your recommended color palette as a starting point, nothing more. Don’t reject colors simply because they are not in your palette and don’t assume all shades in your palette look great on you. You still need to do the legwork of examining colors against your skin and figuring out which colors fit your individual complexion, shade by shade.
Guideline #2
Your Personal Style Persona Outranks Your Color Space
Your color space should never restrict your ability to express your visual impression, through your wardrobe. If your recommended color palette does not match your style statement, you will need to evaluate each hue separately and then make a decision; do I wear the color, avoid altogether, or tweak the hue. If a certain shade, tone, or tint really does make you look ill or 10 pounds heavier, locate a substitute hue that still captures the color’s spirit and energy but works with your skin tone. Use the 12 Tone color wheel like a course-plotter: if you love the orange in the Dark Autumn color space, but you fall into the Bright Spring category, move around the color wheel towards your own color space until you come across a possible alternative or move directly across from your color category.
For example if the orange in your Bright Spring color space resonates a little too warm with your skin tone, try your neighbor’s Bright Winter orange on for size. Your color palette might not include your sought after color, but perhaps your “CHEAT” or your counterpart color space does;
Bright Spring=Dark Autumn
Bright Winter=Light Summer
Dark Winter=Soft Summer
Soft Autumn=Light Spring
True Winter=True Summer
True Autumn=True Spring
If a color does not look amazing on you then don’t NOT wear it! I’m a Bright Spring so a pure, cool white is definitely not one of my best colors, but I love it and it’s an important part of my style personality. If I want to wear white, I surround my face with a bright necklace or scarf or add a pop of bright color with my eye liner or lip color. Perfect segue…
Guideline #3
Showcase YOUR Face
Prioritize your color selections based on the ones that surround your face. The whole point of color analysis is to find colors that flatter your skin tone, hair, and eye color; YOUR Face. Items that are not in direct line with your face might have an impact on the overall cohesiveness of your ensemble, although not on your complexion. Regardless of your color type, feel free to wear shoes, skirts, trousers, or a bag in any hue of the rainbow and reserve all of your color energy for your tops, jackets, scarves, earrings, necklaces, make up, etc.
Now Go Have a Whole Lot of Fun with Your NEW Book of Colors.
Still Confused? Schedule a session with Invent Your Image Today.
Did not answer your burning question? Scroll down to the comment box below.
At least for some, in the beginning stages of getting used to a WHOLE new palette, sticking close to it for the time being will be paramount until getting your feet wet. It is mind boggling to think of any kind of different color space when you are just getting to know the one you have been given. I know among my friends, some can cheat into a neighboring color space quite easily while others have to stick close to their palette. I think, in the end, it all takes individual experimentation.
Totally agree. Well put Tina.
Pretty much everything I have come to think after a couple of years of being lost in the colour vortex is contained in this post. In my humble opinion, the idea that colour analysis is some kind of esoteric holy relic is just off the mark. It’s an aesthetic tool. Helpful to have some knowledge of where you fit “on the munsell”, for sure, but I don’t think enslavement to the fan and all its mumbo jumbo is a healthy place to be. Nothing wrong with having a “colour hobby”, but, if you want to wear pastel pink and you’re an autumn, for goodness sake, wear it and be happy. Wear a hundred yards of it.
Well said. Have I meant you before?
Love your term “Color Vortex” I think I am going to use that during my next PCA session if I feel they are going to leave and find exact matches for everything color in their book from makeup to clothing. Thanks for all your candid comments. They all made me laugh. Do you write a blog? If not you should.
Hi Lisa, no, we haven’t met before. Glad you enjoyed my comment! I’m not anti-pca or fashion, style, any of it, but I do bristle at the hype outside those areas that it is sometimes given. I read a comment by an English image professional that hit the nail on the head for me, she said something along the lines of: I am not my appearance, my appearance is not my identity and when you get the two mixed up, you’re heading for trouble. She works in the field so clearly is an advocate of using personal style to express and enjoy yourself, but she knows the difference between looking for the inside on the outside, perhaps is a way to put it. Or, even more sinisterly, in my opinion, making an idol out of coloured swatches of fabric. Yes, have fun, enjoy, share, love your body and all that stuff, but mise en place, as the French say. Anyway, thank you for responding and I’m glad you got a laugh out of it!
Wow powerful. Do you recall who the English image consultant is? Do you ID with one color space or do you wear colors based on your mood? Seriously do you write a blog? Would you consider guest blogging on our page?
The image consultant is Jane Fardon. She made these comments at the end of a blog post title “Do you think in Couture?”. Here’s the url:
https://www.janefardon.com/do-you-think-in-couture/
I have been analysed three times, one four seasons, one Caygill type, one online. Dark summer, a kind of shaded autumn, dark summer again in that order. Do I identify? No, but it has been helpful.
You come at this stuff from a point of ignorance, two years later you’re looking at tee-shirts and thinking chroma levels. It helps because one day you wake up and you’re not 21 anymore and you don’t know how to dress yourself. The old stuff isn’t working. Why does my skin look yellow? etc. Two years ago, I didn’t know there was such a thing as an image consultant. What the hell was colour analysis? Why can’t I find pants that fit? Who stole my shops and gave them to teenagers? Sadly, and I have to say sadly, it becomes a kind of emergency. “Maturing”, shall we call it, rips the carpet out from under your feet in ways you simply cannot see coming.
I don’t have a blog, thank you for your kind comments about my comments! I would be really honoured to write something for your blog if you would like? Either way, it’s been enjoyable communicating with you.
Thanks for the link. Great read! I do not even know your name? I am loving your interactive comments. Yes I would love it if you wrote a blog post, maybe about your maturing journey. I am on one as well. Even being an image consultant, tweaking your own look becomes necessary at 50 and beyond. LMK what you think. You can email me at lisa@inventyourimage.com Thanks for considering it.
Hi Lisa, I’ll email you today.
Perfect. Thanks.
I think your comments about picking colors outside your color wheel is helpful. It’s nice to have “permission” to pick some things in colors that I love. I am not a black and white person but recently found a cardigan that I loved; I couldn’t walk away. So I bought it and wear it with a beautiful bright turquoise tank under and it changes the whole look for me. I felt so good about it I also bought black and white shoes. Cute shoes but not near my face! Your advice is very good and really made me think outside the box!
Thanks Deb for your feedback and glad the blog post assited you in thinking OTB.
Lisa
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Thanks for re-posting our color blog. How did you hear about our company- Invent Your Image?