I’m sure if you’re a child of the 70’s or 80’s, your mum had a book when you were growing up called “Color Me Beautiful” Remember it?

It split us all up into 4 different colour palettes – Summer | Autumn | Winter |Spring – and a whole generation of ladies began ‘shopping to their colours”.

Now as a stylist, I’m ALL about using filters and guidelines to help you make shopping easier (hell, it’s fundamental in what I do!) what I DON’T agree with, is restricting people with these categories, and telling them WHAT NOT TO WEAR.

That’s a big no-no in my book.

Style should be about who you are, a really cool way to reflect your personality on the outside, so if you want to wear a colour that ‘doesn’t suit you’ then damn it, wear the colour!

Now. Saying that, we also all want to look out best right? So putting a colour that isn’t your best right next to your face, can make you look a little washed out, (or on my case with mustard, it makes me look jaundice!).

So how do we get around that? Here are some quick styling tips I use with my 1-on-1 personal styling clients to show then how to wear any colour they choose and still look banging!

Take me a mustard yellow. I LOVE it as a colour, it just tends to not love me back (again. the jaundice thing). BUT when I saw this gorgeous kimono from CottonOn it called to me….. (you can shop it here btw, and it’s only $35!!)

So what is it about this particular piece that works more than most? Well it’s a few different things, and you can apply most of them when working with colours too…

1. It’s not SOLID mustard next to my face – most of the time, when a colour doesn’t look right, it’s because it’s clashing with your skintone, and that becomes the most obvious when it’s right up next to your face. So simple, don’t wear it next to your face.

2. Break up the colour – This kimono style allows me to put some crisper, cleaner colour (the black and white) in between the colour to soften it. Once again, I’m not putting a solid colour that doesn’t look the best, right up next to my face.

3. Try a print – the print can soften the colour if it’s not your best. The other colours in the print (green, violet, white and red) are all actually much better colours for me, so the addition of those in the print makes it more friendly.

4. Accessorise with it – if you STILL don’t feel 100%, but really want to wear a certain colour, simple – just wear it away from your face! In a shoe, a handbag, or even a skirt or pants. And them pair it with a colour that really pops on you and you’ll be good to go.

 

So remember,  I’m not telling you to wear colours you hate – as always, the MOST important thing is to wear what makes you feel good. I hope this just helps get around one of the barriers that stops up wearing so much fun stuff!

Oh, and if you want a few tips on what colour combos work well together, have a quick read of THIS BLOG I wrote last week.

Do you have something that you’d love to wear but just not sure how to pull it off? Why not tell me in the comments below and I’ll see if I can help you out in a future post.

Until Next Time, In Love & Style Always,