💄 How to Wear a Colour That Doesn’t Suit You
I don’t believe that finding your colour season means throwing your wardrobe in the bin and starting again.
Firstly, you are likely to make mistakes when you do so as it takes time to warm up your knowledge, and secondly I believe that our personal style goes beyond rules. I use these systems as tools to make my style better, not to rule my life.
I have many sentimental items in my wardrobe I would like to wear again. I also have many items which work for my body type and silhouette but don’t quite hit my perfect colours. This is my method for wearing a colour that doesn’t suit me.
What you will learn today…
🩰 Style Method: Colour Assimilation
👗 Should you care if an item doesn’t suit you?
👛 Case study: How wearing the wrong colours can be stylish
Style Method: Colour Assimilation
Step 1: Identify it’s key features
You can probably get as far as ‘it’s purple’ but let’s go a little deeper. Is the item cool, soft and dark? Is it a rich purple, a soft lilac?
Step 2: Find the conflict
Now you have identified the key features of the item you can work out why it is conflicting with you. Perhaps it is too rich for your features, too warm or too dark.
Step 3: Counteract the conflict
If the top is too dark for you, you could pair it with lighter colours to lift your facial features. If the piece is too cool, you need to surround it with warmer colours.
Step 4: Place it in the colour wheel
If your top is purple, you would place it between pink and blue for tonal dressing. Therefore, in an outfit you would surround it with pinks and blues that do work for your features to make it a natural extension of your palette.
LEARN MORE
Should you care that a colour doesn’t suit you?
My comments are constantly divided between “you should wear your best colours” and “wearing things that are flattering is dumb”. I fall somewhere in the middle. Colour seasons is a tool that you can choose to bring into your tool box, or leave behind if you find that it doesn’t serve you.
I think this debate leans into an even larger one: does it matter what you look like in your outfit to other people, or does it only matter when you look down at yourself? I think this binary thinking fails to recognise that constraints and restrictions can pose a challenge which makes the act of putting an outfit together fun; the journey itself of piecing items together can be just as valuable to the wearer as the end result.
I can also go back the age-old argument that dressing nicely and in a way that makes you shine doesn’t have to have anything to do with dressing for other people at all, it can be for those moments when you catch yourself in the mirror and think “wow, maybe I am beautiful”.
I have recently been chatting with Margarita Chudnovskaya (Style Thoughts by Rita) and discovered her system to help you find your style logic. Depending on where you all in the quadrant system, you might find that rules like colour seasons are largely unhelpful to your style journey, or that filtering your style through that lens makes it a more enjoyable and satisfying experience. She said “ we all come to authenticity in our own way” and that really resonated with me.
I can’t tell you whether or not to care, but if you find that you do, all my tips and tricks on colour should help you realign yourself with a wardrobe that feels more exciting for you.
Case Study: Wearing the wrong colours can be stylish
Wearing the wrong colours can be a statement rather than a ‘mistake’. I don’t believe that Taylor Swift intended to look her most traditional in this moment on the red carpet at the Met Gala - her look was supposed to feel futuristic, otherworldly, dangerous and a little edgy. The fact that she is wearing cool tones and her hair is bleached out of her season helps create that harsh impression.
WEEKLY CURATION
☕️ TikTok - How to romanticise winter | This daily list is so inspirational. Winter can feel so depressing seeing it get dark, and this post is the first thing I have seen that has made me so excited for it. Such a great reminder that every day we can choose to make our days a little nicer.
🧪 YouTube - Deadly Cosmetic Myths | It seems we have been lied to us about clean beauty for decades. Mina Le delves into the history of the clean beauty movement and how much these brands are really helping us
👱♀️ TikTok - Healthy Hair 101 | You shouldn’t be using olaplex if you have natural hair? This list of hair tips challenged some of my assumptions about my own hair routine, and has been very helpful as my natural hair grows out
💕 YouTube - How to master the art of colour matching | Trinny breaks down how to combine unusual colours in this fantastic episode of closet confessions
What’s new
🎁 New packages - I now offer three services: features analysis, style analysis and a chat with me. The packages have undergone a complete re-development with new sections, new information, and an exciting updated structure. View an example here
📸 Donate your pictures to Body & Style - I am so excited to finally be making videos using REAL WOMEN! I want to do analysis just like I do for celebrities but with my viewers. This is such a great opportunity to feature more mid and plus size bodies on the channel, and see how these rules work practically in the real world. Submit your photos here?
👏 Join the community - I have launched a patreon! If you want live workshops with me every month where you get to ask me your burning questions in an intimate group, this is your opportunity. I also reinvest all the profits from Patreon back into the YouTube channel to make the content stronger and better, so every penny leads to better videos.
New Uploads:
🎨 YouTube - The Ultimate Guide to Finding Your Colour Season | I view colour seasons from the perspective of a beginner and break down the key terms like light/dark, warm/cool to help you get to grips with the basics
📸 TikTok - Why do women have no photos of themselves? | I ponder on why so many women feel they only deserve to be remembered as mothers, wives or friends
🥖 TikTok - Why this modern “French girl” outfit doesn’t work on my body type | I rant about why outfit templates and capsule wardrobe certain creators are trying to sell you won’t help curate personal style
💕 TikTok - The best lines for each Kibbe body type | I am going back to basics on my socials at the moment as I realise I haven’t done a deep dive into each type for two years!
Until next time…
Thank you for reading this week’s newsletter. Thank you also for your patience recently, I have had a million projects at once and the newsletter has slipped dramatically. I am hoping now to get back into the flow and you should see me every other Friday
Ellie-Jean x
My Services
Features Analysis - Get my recommendations for your body type, essence and colour season
Style Analysis - Define your personal style and identify your next steps
Styling Session - Ask me your questions and put the toolbox into practise
My Products
The Ultimate 12 Colour Seasons Guide
WORKBOOK: 8 Week Transformation
The 3 Tier Wardrobe System Guide
