The Best Color for a Suit or Jacket
Here’s a tip borrowed from the guys: If you are going to buy a blazer this fall, or a sweater or a vest, your best color option is — drumroll please — your haircolor. Picture it. Your hair and your jacket working together to form a frame to flatter your face, making it the focal point of your outfit.
(Since I am not likely to find a silver suit, I have bought two brown tweed suits - one with trousers, one with a skirt -to wear this fall.)
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Building a Personal Color Scheme
I’ve been asked a number of times for more detail on building a color strategy based on one’s own personal coloring. Currently my best thoughts are these.
Step 1: choose a frame neutral or two
If you were a man and building a simple, formal business wardrobe from scratch, I’d first advise you to buy a suit in a color which blends with your hair color (Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion
- if you have dark hair, look good in black, and need a business wardrobe - by all means, choose black!
- for me, it’s not quite that simple. The main thing is to choose a flattering color in the right value (light vs dark).
- It’s not necessary to choose a neutral. One young lady I know, with auburn hair and green eyes, uses purple as a wardrobe staple.
Step 2: identify the color range you can choose more freely from
- For many this will be the eye color.
- Alternatively, hemoglobin color is an especially good option for those with brown eyes. This is what I do, using a range from peach to coral pink on the light end to coral as my bright to a burgundy as dark as my eyes.
- With gray eyes and hair, and lips so cool in tone as to be almost purple, I have another friend who could choose a range from lavendar to deeper purple.
Step 3: choose your accent color or neutral
- This could be black or white
- It could be your eye color, if you haven’t already used it.
- Do you have something specific to your idiom that you want to use as an accent, such as a collection of turquoise jewelry?
Beyond these basics, everything is chosen for its ability to blend with your basic skeleton of colors. For additional variety, you could use a different color scheme for each season.
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Rules Are Meant to Be Broken
Don’t miss Imogen’s post on when to break the “rules”!
I would only add that which rules you break (and when and why) then becomes part of your idiom; that is, your unique style of artistic expression.
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What’s My Idiom?
idiom: A style of artistic expression characteristic of a given individual …
So much more individual than a style type designation, your personal idiom expresses the inner you to the outer world. Daily demands, personal coloring and silhouette, your lifestyle, even your budget, all combine with your fashion personality and many other variables to form a style of artistic expression all your own. (One of those variables is how you choose to interact with movements within the realm of fashion and trend.)
Congruence is the name of the game. If you express yourself consistently within your own idiom, people will naturally be drawn to your personality, as it will be showing, and you will be easier to be around.
Recently my sister decided to include a print in each outfit. One daughter is going heavily after gray this fall (heavily for this thrifty chica is a couple of t-shirts, buy one get one for $1, a scarf, and a pair of tights). Mom has lost weight and is deleting everything that doesn’t fit. I’m still thinking.
Looking toward fall, what will characterize the style of your artistic expression?
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Why Girls Should Dress Like Girls
The short answer is: it’s Biblical.
Often, as young people move towards finding their own personal style idiom, they either experiment or rebel. While rebellion can often be avoided (IMO most rebellion can be avoided by not forcing kids to wear polo shirts), I consider experimenting to be rather a normal part of this stage of life.
And experimenting can get into some androgynous looks: men wearing makeup, women with short hair, and so on. The dangers in these things are, as I see them:
- people really not being able to tell if you are a boy or a girl.
- portraying the wrong idea regarding your *interests*.
So, while I encourage experimenting to develop your own style, it seems best to take care to maintain your God-given gender identity. In other words, make sure that it is obvious you are female.
Some ideas that might help:
- Carry a purse. (This works for all kinds of things - like being able to distinguish between the workers and the shoppers in a store.)
- If your hair is short, wear girly earrings. Or a scarf.
- Buy girl fit shirts, rather than wearing men’s.
More suggestions?
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The Elements of Frump
“Many pitfalls of frumpiness can be avoided by not mixing shapes within an outfit”
Ever since I said that and read Vildy’s subsequent comment (I’d love more examples of avoiding frumpiness by not mixing the shapes. Frumpiness = outdated looks?), I’ve been ruminating on the question “What defines frumpy?” For example, when the world was declaring Susan Boyle “frumpy”, that was not the word I would have chosen to describe her (maybe her hairstyle …). After a second look, I would use the word frumpy. That just wasn’t the first word I would have chosen. I think I’ll stop now, before I get myself in trouble.
Googling frumpy turned up this: Genevieve Fox declares Boden too frumpy for Michelle Obama in a Telegraph.co.uk article, primarily for the reason that the fit of the clothes is not flattering. My point in bringing this up isn’t to slam Boden - I think they have lots of cute stuff to offer - but to call out unflattering fit as the first element of frump. Serendipitously, Karen of a Certain Age has blogged comprehensive guidelines for Dumping the Frump with Clothes that Fit.
The word frumpy implies:
- unflattering fit
- conservative or matronly (maybe? maybe not?)
- outdated (as opposed to classic)
- inappropriate to the setting. Both big picture, like wearing an ordinary day dress to an evening gala, and in detail, like wearing hair or accessories out of character with the rest of the outfit. I need a fancier hairstyle for going out.
What would you add to that definition of frumpy?
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What’s Important in a Dress
Great quote, given to me by Lori:
“Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it.”
Yves Saint Laurent
The funny thing was it came in a little envelope with a note saying it reminded her of me. But when I pulled it out of the envelope this is what I read:
Making a difference in our environment is as simple as driving a more fuel-efficient vehicle.
Huh? I looked at it and looked at it, until I finally turned the magazine clipping over. Who would have thought there’d be little statements like that printed on both sides of the page? lol
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Can Teeth Be Too White?
In a word: yes. Much whiter than the whites of your eyes at best looks unbalanced and at worst freakish. Do you really want people to notice your teeth before your eyes?
In my opinion, there is a single naturally appropriate focal point for everyone: the face. Within the face, the eyes should be the focus. It’s about respect and communication.
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Wardrobe Therapy with Dr Wende
While I am busy with homework for my watercolor class and building sets for Peter Pan, I nevertheless leave you with both amusing reading and a wardrobe organization project for the weekend. The schedule, and ground rules, for drwende’s fall wardrobe therapy are here.
Enjoy your weekend! What kind of fabulous projects are on your calendar?
(BTW - Have a fashion question? Globe and Mail is taking your questions for Amy Verner to answer Monday online. Hat tip: Wendy.)
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The Pie Chart
I’m re-running this, one of my very early posts, because I think the concept is basic. Whether you have a mental pie chart or actually use one of the links here to build one, you need to know how much of your life you spend in which kinds of clothes.
Recently the trend in fashion advice books has been to draw yourself a pie chart, based on some form of lifestyle segmentation, in order to visualize the level of need in each category. What I found for you: a web-site that will do your pie chart for free. You can even choose the colors! I also found a web-site where you can download applets to make pie charts and graphs for use on your site.
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to build your own pie chart, based on your own lifestyle. Decide first whether you need to split any of my suggested categories into two or more; say, if your office has Casual Friday every week and you want to add a business casual segment. For the value of each segment, enter the number of times per week you dress for that lifestyle. I mean, each time you get dressed (every time the baby spits up or … ). That’s really all there is to it!
