One of the key questions to ask yourself to determine which colors will make you happiest is a straightforward one: are you warm or cool? Understanding your colors helps you start to build color palettes for your wardrobe that will feel โjust rightโ whenever you wear them.
Last month, I talked about color confidence and, if you have read that, by simply taking a look back, you should see a color temperature direction reveal itself.
There will always be exceptions in any group of photos, but for the most part, reviewing the pics you chose as a whole should allow you to begin to sort yourself into one of two camps: cool (blues, greens, cool purples, and blue-grays) or warm (reds, oranges, yellows, warm browns, and red-grays).
See if you can further define it to include which intensity of warm or cool colors is most appealing to you. Thinking about the tones and tints of the colors. Do you gravitate to darker dramatic versions of the colors or chalky modern pastels? Intense solid brights or softer, subtle versions of the hues?
One way to describe these smaller groupings is: cool/dark, cool/light, warm/dark, warm/light.
Narrowing down the range of colors, warm or cool, that appeal to you, and then starting to think about whether you are attracted to darker or lighter spaces is a big step toward confidently choosing and combining colors in your own wardrobe.
Choosing colors that work together harmoniously isnโt always as straightforward as choosing hues that should work well together.
Every color has an undertone. Itโs important for the colors you choose to have harmonious undertones and that good color combination relationship (such as analogous or complementary, etc.).
Hereโs one way to think about it: no color exists in isolation. That is why undertones matter.
You can love a specific gray on a fabric swatch, but what matters is how it works with the other colors that are part of your wardrobe.
You might not even be able to determine what the undertone of that shade of gray even is when you look at it on its own. But, once you put it next to other, similar grays, the undertones will start to become clearer.
Letโs say you have 8 possible dark gray swatches to choose from. They are similar enough that they all can be described in the same way. But, put all eight of those swatches next to each other, and you might see that some of the blue-grays lean a little toward purple, others more toward the green.
Once you start to determine the undertones and can describe them as they appear, such as โa green-ish blue-gray โ (one with more yellow undertones) or a โpurple-ish blue-grayโ (one with more red undertones) and youโll have a clue as to which one will likely work best with your other color choices.
For example, more purple-ish gray might be a more harmonious choice in a palette that includes pinks or reds (or other colors/neutrals with undertones of those colors). In contrast, the slightly greenish blue-gray might work better in a color scheme along with more greens and yellows (or neutrals with undertones of those colors).
Now you know the importance of not committing to that seemingly-perfect โfavoriteโ blue-gray that you love on a swatch in a vacuum. Pick up multiple swatches, compare them to each other, AND, most importantly, to the other colors in the color scheme you are working toward, and then determine which one is truly your best bet.