We live in a coloured world. We wear colour, we choose colours to live with in our houses, we are surrounded by colour. It plays a vital role in our lives. It determines colour palettes for fashions, interior design, moods and emotional states. We can use colour to create illusion and as a symbol for…
The Personality of Patterns in Scarves This is the topic of the video Jill Chivers of Shop Your Wardrobe and I discuss, though the personality of prints and the discussion on fabric choices extends into other clothing elements outside of the scarf! So how do you express personality through your patterns? Patterns Classic – stripes…
Accessories can be a great way of adding contrast in your outfit. You can add interest with pops of colour in accessories and create focal points for which to draw attention and encourage the eye to linger. You can raise your colour contrast. You can raise or lower your value contrast. This is why accessories…
I love colour (as regular readers will be aware) and I don’t have a naturally high colour contrast (ideally I’m physically more in the neutral plus 1 colour camp). But I like to wear more than one colour in patterns as they are often more versatile than a colour plus neutral print, and have found…
So you’re a bit scared of colour and you tend to wear black and grey and then combinations of black and grey as you’re just not sure how to add colour and you really don’t want to look like a clown. Now neutral outfits in black, white and grey abound on our city streets and…
Have you ever thought about how colours communicate? What is their mood and how does your mood influence the colours you choose? How about the energy of colours and what that expresses to the world? This is the topic of this video discussion with Jill Chivers of Shop Your Wardrobe. The Energy of Colour The…
Orange, a secondary colour that sits between red and yellow on the colour wheel has both a warm overtone and a warm undertone. No matter which you way you alter it, adding black to shade just makes a deeper orange, white tints it lighter, grey softens it, yellow makes a yellow-orange and red makes a…
Violet (technical name for purple) is a colour like teal that can be worn by both warm and cool undertone colouring. The difference is that cool undertones can wear all violets, and warm undertones can only successfully wear the warmer end of the violet spectrum. So which is which? Consider the Colour Wheel As violet…
How do you manage moving your wardrobe from one colour palette to another? Why Your Colour Palette May Change Directions (or Seasons) You are growing older year by year and your colouring has softened with age (yes it happens to all of us) and Jill and I have discussed where you may go here. You…
How does the contrast of your clothes communicate? Did you know that wearing different contrast levels (both value contrast and colour contrast) communicate in different ways? In this video Jill Chivers of Shop Your Wardrobe and I talk about the psychology of contrast and how it communicates so you can use this knowledge to your…
Browns can have a warmer or cooler undertone as with most colours. So how to choose the warm from the cool? Warm Undertone Browns These have a yellow base (and as you know, yellow warms up the temperature of a colour). Cool Undertone Browns There are a couple of ways to cool down a…
All colours (apart from the orange spectrum) have a warm and cool undertone version so a colour that we may call “red”, “burgundy” or “maroon” could be either warm or cool. Red is a colour that has many permutations, from baby pink to coral, magenta and burgundy. Unlike blue or green, that when we add…
Recently whilst dropping my daughter and her friend to dancing class, her friend said “you really like blue don’t you, as you’re always wearing it?“. I answered in the affirmative as I do love blue as I have blue eyes and blue is a signature colour for me as it is an eye enhancer. Blue…
Some people feel at odds with the colour palette that flatters. For example, a bold or dramatic personality (loving bright colours) whilst the colours that flatter may be softer and smokier and lack that obvious drama. Ideally you want to create balance between the inner you, your personality, and the outer you, your appearance and…
I recently found this Colour Matching Guide and think it’s a nifty tool to help you find the value of a colour. In fact, using it will make you an expert in finding the value of a colour and then putting together the right value contrast for you. How to Use the Colour Matching Guide…
Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz says “Clothes should match a woman’s presence – her figure and colouring – and when you discover a shade that works well for you, wear it! The right colour gives you power, no matter what it is.” It’s great to see a designer understand that clothes should be about flattering you…
One of the properties of colour is undertone (sometimes called temperature). When we think about colour undertone (or temperature) warm relates to yellow (the sun), cool to blue (water). If you want to make a colour warmer in undertone, add a little yellow – which is why a yellow-green is warmer than a blue-green…
No matter the print, whether it’s florals, animal, abstract, ikat, check, geometrics or stripes, finding prints that relate to your value and value contrast will make your outfit look so much better on you. Just as with colours where you should wear the colour rather than the colour wearing you. You should be the one…
The ageing process changes many aspects of your life, from body, to lifestyle and how you approach style. And then of course there is colouring too, which is the topic of the video in this post as Jill Chivers of Shop Your Wardrobe and I discuss how colouring changes with the ageing process (and show…
There are a couple of things to consider when choosing a metallic accessory such as jewellery or metallic garments. 1. Undertone (or temperature) of your colouring 2. Brightness of your palette and sheen of your skin Let’s look at each individually. Undertone or Temperature Whether you have a cool or warm undertone will make a…
Not sure what to wear or how to put an outfit together? Stuck for ideas on what to wear so you keep going back to that same old tried and true formula? This weekend, do something different and why not go monochrome and put together an interesting, layered outfit. Watch the video and see examples here…
