Jill Chivers of 16 Style Types and I have been asked about how often should you be re-evaluating and updating your style recipe and your colour palette? So we sat down and had a chat about these topics in this video.
Reassessing Your Style Recipe
The options are up to you – but here are some strategies that work for others:
Every season, or at least once a year – take some time to reassess if your style recipe is still resonating with you and assisting you in making the best selection when shopping.
Are Your Words the Best Words?
If the words in your recipe are OK but you are not madly in love with them – maybe think about using the strategy that I use – be open to new words – keep your brain on the lookout for better words than the ones you’re currently using. When reading a book, watching a TV show, having a conversation – wherever words are used in your life, think about capturing words that say what you want to say in your style recipe. Often the topic of where I find words has nothing to do with style – it’s the word that piques my interest.
What’s the Reminder in Your Style Recipe?
Is your style recipe reminding you what you really need (and tend to forget about or overlook at times) rather than stating the obvious? For example – you may have included comfortable in your recipe – yet you naturally buy comfortable – so that’s a given (in the way that Jill doesn’t include animal print in her style recipe, she needs no reminding of that!). Instead, there is something that you need to remind yourself to look for – quirky or whatever it is that is meaningful for you. Of course, if you do want comfort and you keep purchasing clothing and shoes that aren’t – then having this word in your style recipe is imperative!
Style recipes are not a set and forget thing – they are an everchanging, morphing reminder of where you are now and where you want to go with your style with any new purchases.
Taking a Look to the Future or Using The Past For Guidance
Style Types who have an N (for iNtuition) in their type code – will often have more of a vision of their future self and be looking for possibilities of the direction they want to head in.
Those with S (for Sensing) are great at the current experience and also looking back to what has worked in the past. For a Sensor – you may find it easier to look back at and review your style over recent time which will then guide you with the words that go into making your style recipe, of what’s working for you right now.
A style recipe is something to help you make good decisions regarding your style and to help you create your most authentic style.
The Value of a Style Recipe
If you’re more easily swayed by what friends or family think (and will wear clothes that aren’t really you because your friend liked them on you), or find it hard to say no to a salesperson in a store because they’ve been helpful. A style recipe is a great way of giving you a solid rock to ensure before you buy.
Ask yourself every season:
- Is my style recipe still relevant?
- Is it still me today?
- Is it still who I want to be now?
- Is going to suit my vision of the future me?
- Is it going to help me achieve my future plans?
Over the past year or so I’ve gradually been adding more floaty items to my wardrobe as this feels right to me right now, and still works with my style recipe, though I’m thinking about how my recipe my be tweaked for the me who is me right now.
How Often Do You Reassess Your Colour Palette?
This is a simpler question in many ways as it’s more obvious. My best advice is that it’s worth reassessing every 5-10 years – depending on whether or not you feel the colours are still as flattering today as they were when you had your last colour analysis. (A colour analysis is part of my 7 Steps to Style program if you’re looking for one).
Except – if you make a major hair colour change (such as I did going from brunette to blonde) which will change your colour palette (and may also change your contrast levels as well).
There are some general ageing stages in life that can help you decide if it’s time for a new colour analysis:
- Birth – 15
- 15-30
- 30-45
- 45-60
- 60-75
- 75+
But these are just guidelines – what is more important is to note how your colouring has changed – have you gone grey? If so how much – just a little or a lot? Not only do your hair pigments change, but so do your skin and eye pigments change in line with your hair colour changing, it’s just not as obvious. Menopause can change a woman’s skin which also is a good time to reassess colouring.
If you are dying your hair back to your “natural” colour (the colour you had at say 15 or 20 years of age) and you’re now 50 – there is a good chance that this colour isn’t as good for you as it once was – as your skin will have changed and you may find that the colour has become harsh against your skin.
Jill talks in the video about currently being in a yellow phase – which she describes in this post how she feels about the colour yellow.
If you decide to rock the silver and stop dying hair, then this is also a great time to get a new colour analysis.
If you feel like that you see the colour before you see your face – there should be a balance between the brightness of the colour and you – if you’re always looking at the colour and it’s hard to notice your face – then the colours are too bright and it’s time to soften them down.
More often than not, small changes in colouring mean changes to your contrast and how you put your colours together, rather than needing a new colour palette.
Share With Us
We’d love to know how often you’ve changed or updated your style recipe? What has instigated this change?
What are the things that have changed with your colouring that have made you decide it’s time for a reassessment?
Further Reading on When to Reassess
How to Manage the Transition from One Colour Palette or Season to Another
How Do You Know When You’ve Hit Your Happy Point On Your Style Journey?
Linking up with Visible Monday, Style with a Smile, Not Dressed as Lamb, Shoe Nudge, Top of the World, Ageless Style
Thank you Imogen and Jill for an excellent video! Like Imogen, I transitioned my haircolor in a big way. In 2017 I went from medium neutral brown to my natural silver color. My color palette has changed from Bright Winter to Cool Winter. I’m embracing more of the icy pink and icy blue now, and my chocolate brown leather fashion accessories are gathering dust. For my style recipe I’ve honed in on the words “romantic” and “hero” because I need more interesting hero pieces and romantic, feminine clothes make me happiest. Following your advice in the video, I need no reminding to use the words, “well-made, timeless, or classic.” I’m guilty of having too many good basics.
It is so interesting how everything that you teach works together. I remember from 7 Steps, calculating my 3 top style categories, with the instruction that the first is your underlying style, the second, a category that you must include to be able to feel like “you,” and then the third, little bits/accessories that express the “real you.” My third category was Rebellious. My style recipe is “Polished Playful” (or the reverse), but I need to have my own little treasures on, from a shark-tooth ring to another barbed-wire-ish ring, etc. (And, they are all handmade, a la INFJ). What is interesting to me is, this past year, I have chosen more and more edgy articles of clothing, not just accessories. Maybe to ward off feeling dowdy as I get older, but maybe to express more and more the “real me” that has been there all along?
Interesting – and so glad you shared this! I think as you gain acceptance of the real you – and play with it more in your style – you can become bolder showing it over time too.
Thanks for another wonderful discussion. Interesting what brought me to 7Steps was color. My wardrobe colors were wearing me and aging me and I was at a loss figuring out what was happening. While still cool based, I went too deep and often too bright for my middle age coloring. Once you sorted my palette to soft, light and muted with only medium value contrasts, my wardrobe has become user friendly again.
Also interesting on recipe as mine is Classy, Opulent, Detailed and Timeless and Jill mentioned style types have correlations to our recipes. Lightbulb moment for me as an ESFJ and I started laughing as you can imagine with my word choices and significance to my style type.
Always learn so much from you two!
Yes that need for detail and to be timeless – so ESFJ!
Excellent video. I have gotten so much valuable information and style advice from your blog, the 7 Steps program and recently the 16 Style Types program. This video was especially interesting to me as I am re-evaluating my palette a bit as I age. The tip about value contrasts is just what I needed. Thanks!
This is such great information. I’m probably guilty of choosing colors that you notice more than my face. But I just love color so much!!
I’ll have to reevaluate and see ….
XOXO
Jodie
http://www.jtouchofstyle.com
I am so glad I found your blog. I am Ada. Love how bold and fierce and fearless you are with colors and patterns. Love that leopard skirt and turquoise little bomber jacket. =)
Happy December! Welcome by and join my linkup this week and every Thursday. Thanks, Ada. =)
http://eleganceandmommyhood.blogspot.com/2018/12/thursday-moda-144-fitflare-dresses-for.html
Your colors are so bright and fun. I love the turquoise on you! Colors are fun and I re evaluate usually every season and get rid of items I don’t like or didn’t wear.
http://www.mylittlenest.org
I was a “dirty blond” and am now a white silver. I used to think I was a spring. Now I believe I’m a summer in that color system. Not even sure this is possible. But I really did have to turn my wardrobe upside down. Since I let it go naturally since it blended well, I could make a more gradual transition. However, I still feel a bit odd in cool colors.
It certainly can happen – I’ve seen people move from warm to cool – but not everyone does when they go white- some people’s skin remains warm and just needs a much softer version of spring.