Colour is what humans use to tell the energy of light. The chemical reaction connects up in our brain and creates certain mood chemicals. We all have a version of this gorgeous happy colour that looks gorgeous and happy next to the colours in our skin. More should wear it more often. Most have a love-hate relationship with it.
*Joan asked:
Yellow is my favorite color, but I’m a True Summer and I’ve never found a shade that didn’t make me look ill. It would be great if your website could show a photo of a True Summer person wearing the right shade of yellow.
A photo of someone looking great in their yellow is a tall order. It doesn’t happen often on most of our visual resources. I would have to post a picture of a private individual who has been draped, but people prefer to maintain their privacy.
True Summers are hard to find and public ones are all highlighted blonde. Kelli Williams of Lie To Me might be. I pinned her picture on the Season and Style Pinterest board. I also pinned some pictures of British royal women wearing various yellows. Duchess Kate is probably a Soft Summer (Summer colours with a bit of Autumn). The Queen may be a True Summer (certainly has the personality to go with it, the good of the many and so on). Diana was probably a Light Summer (mostly Summer colours in her pigmentation, influenced by some Spring effects).
A couple of things before finding some yellows. Be open-minded and keep looking, as Joan is. People often have categorical feelings about yellow. With that mindset, they might not be open to the perfect one when they have it on. If it really harmonized with your palette, wear it for a few days. Ask objective people. Start with small elements in prints or accessories. For some reason, many people are very sensitive to this colour.
Second, even inside our Season, yellow can be fussy. Some people wear many versions well, definitely including True Summers. Others are more particular where if the yellow is not their own, they take on a sallow look.
Third, get good at harmonizing your clothes to the entire palette, not matching single swatches. The database contains lots of info on how to do that but if you are not sure, write and ask. Your whole face has to wear the yellow, or any colour, so you need to match the whole palette to it. If there are particular colours in your fan that you feel best in, match the yellow to those. Try many in the stores. Only by knowing how OFF looks and feels will you get good at recognizing ON.
Hue and Stripe Catalogs
Do you remember The Dress Spot? You can still find their link in the right column of this website. This was the first online tool that could actually help women find dresses in their palette colours. It really worked.
And then it went to the next level, called Hue and Stripe. Now by membership subscription for image and colour consultants (and still by invitation only during the testing stages), H&S enables us to build virtual closets for individual clients. Using fantastic search filters for many wardrobe items, scanning across 12 retailers and more being added all the time, not only can we educate our clients, we can shop for them. The consultant can emails the client with an item or a whole closet, complete with commentary. Items link directly to the retailers, both US and UK. The only searching the client does is to find her size.
Hue and Stripe offers a second way for us to help you in the virtual blackboards called Catalogs that we will see today. In this post, I want to show you some yellows. The picture below is a screenshot of a section of the catalog at H&S.
This link (also just below this paragraph) takes you to the live Catalog on the H&S site. You can travel from those images directly to the retailer. Should an item be sold out, the image will be gray. Hovering over it will clear the fog. If you are reading this post a year from now, no worry, the image will remain.
http://hueandstripe.com/catalog/112H&S1N86
I’m doing this for the first time myself. If anyone is having trouble with some part of the technology, please post a comment or email me (christine@12blueprints.com)
Despite the care that Hue and Stripe take to only show items against white backgrounds in neutral lighting, shopping online imposes certain limitations on everybody including me. You only need one workaround: Do not buy anything that you cannot return.
Yellows
You will see my thinking out loud comments as I reason the items into a Season. Feel free to offer another opinion. I would love that. With pictures, everybody takes their best guess.
What I hope to show you is an idea of what I would be looking for if I were shopping for these Seasons. As with draping a human being, I think first about which of the 4 True Seasons the item probably fits into. Settling it into one of the Neutrals comes after.
When I shop, I repeat certain phrases in my mind. Shopping goes much faster when you know what to ignore, almost shockingly so once you are determined to ignore black.
Winter yellow is
- either nearly white, icy frosty
- or very yellow, lemon
- may be slightly greenish, feels acidic
Summer yellow is
- further from white than Winter icy yellow, but can be quite light if muted because Summer colouring likes lightness
- dusty, so it feels soft, not sharp
- can be greenish because it’s cooled with blue, but the softness makes the green less obvious than Winter unless you hold it next to a warmer yellow
Spring yellow is
- buttery, apricoty, peachy
- orange-ish but not earthy (which is Autumn orange + muted)
- lightweight and floaty in feeling, like it might be sheer
- nice with tropical fruit, sunrise colours
Autumn yellow is
- strong, rich, heavy, thick
- can be greener in the Neutral Seasons, more orange in the True Autumn
- a vase you might use for dried grasses or a basket of squash and pumpkins, would disappear on a table with Indian food, sunset colours
Neutral Beige
Along the way, the question has been asked about a universal colour that looks good on every colouring type. I believe that colour is more theoretical than real. Even the neutral gray that we use as a surround for draping seems to flatter some colourings and not others. As long as it doesn’t distort or change any native colours and is mostly blank in our awareness, it works fine.
Neutral beige would be similar. Neutral beige means it doesn’t pull red, blue, orange. It would neither drain or add colours to any colouring type.
Since I looked at about 3000 tops to find this, the better option is to know your beige. There is no universal colour but the fact that these light beiges are awfully hard to place in one single Season supports the conclusion that they could work nicely in several wardrobes. They might be a bridge more than anything.
The link is here and below:
http://hueandstripe.com/catalog/112H&SUHkQ
A screen capture portion of it:
—–
Announcements:
- A new Facebook group.
For clients of all colour analysts trained by me at 12 Blueprints or Terry at Your Natural Design, the Your Natural Blueprint Color Forum meets on facebook as a Secret Group. Therefore, new members are added by invitation by existing members.
From the intro prepared by Cate Linden (Kentucky),
The purpose of this group is to provide a gathering place for people who have been draped by a 12 Blueprints/Your Natural Design analyst. All 12 seasons will coexist in this group, which is intended as a private resource for our clients. We learn so much from our clients; we know you will learn from each other.
Please share your thoughts, tips and questions. Our aim is to cultivate an atmosphere of mutual learning and respect, and above all to share the beauty and joy of color with you as you grow into your season.
You now have structured and unfiltered access to other PCA practitioners. The group is secret so you can share your emotions and experiences safely, ask questions, find group solutions, and get answers for your own situation.
I can’t link to a Secret Group since it can’t be searched. Connect with Cate Linden by email for an invitation. Just tell her your Season and which analyst you saw. She is at catelinden@gmail.com
Don’t worry about your language skills. Facebook is well translated and there is much to be learned. The beauty of the internet is that it wipes out class systems. Like a beach, it comes very close to an ultimate democracy. Enjoy all the good this space has to offer.
- Travel dates.
Analysts are traveling once again…maybe just those that live in the sunny South. Have a look at the schedule. It has been updated.
3. Colour Analyst Training Course dates.
I expect to post weeks in which the course will be held later this month. Following last year’s plan gives us the final weeks of March, April, May, September, and October. If you have particular dates in mind, please contact me so we can plan around your preferences.
(Featured Image: Quebec City for New Year’s.)
—–