Do you wear colours that don’t suit you?

[HouseofSaltRock]

Black washes me out yet I wear a lot of it for versatility.
Tan shades are too warm but work so well with black that I wear them too to look stylish.

My blond daughter looks amazing in both.

Now, navy, charcoal, pine green, purple and burgundy really flatter my complexion but I find it hard to mix them, smaller range of choices / quality / budget add extra complexity.

Please share if you have managed to eliminate unflattering tones from your wardrobe, and where do you shop for wider range of colours.

You see I think Ms Reeves is better dressed than Ms Sturgeon.
I do too, but my post was in relation to the two photos. RR usually wears nice outfits.

Someone clearly took her in hand. She dresses a lot better now, but it's always very, very safe. Her public outfits are always slim, tailored skirt suits or dresses and jackets , with heels. All colour co-ordinated. It's very smart and appropriate but she looks as if she runs along fixed tram lines.
Probably because of her then position. The pre and post makeover were not vastly different but the difference noticeable. She's not short but she's shortish. RR and TM are taller.

Theresa May, certainly before she became P.M was a far more interesting dresser. She was younger, tallish and very slim, and probably had more of a free rein.

One person hailed as a style icon who wore some real horrors and some fabulous outfits was the current PoW's MIL. The PoW IMO doesn't always get it right but she usually does.

I agree. I'm more like NS. I love clothes and am very fussy and would happily wear a uniform most of the time.

When I was in my twenties I made a thing of wearing all black, all the time, and ponced around like some twat off the Matrix thinking I was cool. Black does not suit me at all, and I hardly ever wear it now. Navy, grey, pink and white are my main colours, with the odd bit of green, burgundy and lighter blue. No jewel colours apart from magenta. No orange, yellow or tan, but I like the contrast they give so I often pick those for accessories. It does make a difference- I look very pale in the wrong colours, with enormous shadows under my eyes.

I'm summer colouring so navy is my best friend as a base colour, however navy comes in so many different hues. I'd love to look good in black but it washes me out so I tend to keep it for the bottom half. I dream of being spring colouring with beautiful golden skin instead of my pink/white skin

I never wear colours that don't suit me. Don't wear pastels or any shades of brown. No autumn colours at all. No cream or beige. No purple or burgandy. I do suit and wear olive and khaki greens though.

I don't wear black often, if I do its a dress or a jumpsuit rather than separates. Or in my gym wear.

My main block colour is navy, and I wear that with greys, whites or bright colours. I don't actually like the colours that don't suit me so thats a plus.

I do wear colours that do not suit me. I only recently got my colours done and have done quite a bit of studying in the area.

I am slowly getting rid of clothing that colours do not flatter me, mainly getting rid of things that have become stained/torn beyond repair or no longer fit.

I agree. I'm more like NS. I love clothes and am very fussy and would happily wear a uniform most of the time.
Interesting, I'm the opposite, I love clothes but I'd hate a uniform. I'd rather get it wrong 6 days a week but nail it fabulously on the 7th.

I don't wear colours that don't suit me - some colours make me look ill.

The colours that suit me go well together so it's easier to pull an outfit together if I stick to them. If I put an ice blue or pastel item in my wardrobe, it would stick out like a sore thumb.

I wouldn't copy NS's style but I think she gets it right for her - she's very petite and anything not properly tailored or patterned would swamp her.

Do you wear colours that don’t suit you?

No, I don't. I had my colours done over 30 years ago, then again four years ago. I suit jewel bright winter colours.

On "how to look expensive threads" camel coats or beige trench coats with tan bags and boots are often cited as the epitome of style. Not for me they aren't.

I struggle to find colours that suit me at this time of year as the shops are full of autumn colours, which only suit people who look good in an autumn palette.

I would say try on a bright white shirt / top and a cream / beige one, in a well lit spot and see if it's obvious which suits you best.
Otherwise Google warm vs cool colours and from there you should be able to work out a palette. I don't think I've got a particularly good eye for these things but when 'draped' in white vs cream it was startling obvious, as I looked half dead in the cream!

I think a lot of people conflate ‘wearing colours that suit you’ with ‘wearing clothes that suit you’.

I’m quite interested in personal style and I think it’s far and away more important to nail down what you like and how to wear it so it feels and looks good. Whatever random item you can lay your hands on in the perfect shade of blue is never going to make you look put together or stylish or whatever your goal is, however well it brightens your jawline.

Having said that, I have had my colours done. I am a Bright Spring, which was never going to work for a person who likes quiet, minimal clothes in quiet, minimal colours. I flirted with geranium red and poster paint blue and then went straight back to my navy, taupe and khaki, vaguely trying for the warmer end of the spectrum when choosing.

I have found it enormously useful to know that I have a very warm undertone. It allows me to pick lipsticks, nail polish and jewellery that suits my skin. Knowing that a bit of orange-red lipstick can undo 50% of the damage after a bad night’s sleep is good to know, but that’s as far as I’d go.

All this to say, I think wearing colours that suit you is part of a wider process, not the answer to all style questions.

I struggled with drapes, but found red lipsticks made it much clearer.

I have side by side photos of myself in cool and warm red and the difference is very clear. You could do it at a MAC counter with Russian Red (a really cool bright red) and Lady Danger (warm bright red verging on orange). Perhaps neither will be amazing, but one will look much better than the other.

You could probably go further and say that if the RR looks amazing you're a winter, if it looks OK but not perfect you're a Summer. If the LD looks amazing you're a Spring, if it looks OK but not perfect, you're an Autumn. Could have saved myself 200 quid if I'd known that before I started 😁

Yeah, I’ve worn things that aren’t great on me for ease. But I’ve really been analysed as a bright winter so I’m trying harder to find things that suit me better and make more of an effort.

I have no idea what colours I should wear but there are ones I positively avoid. Pastels, yellow, orange, red, electric blue, black, purple

I like “sludge” colours. I assume they suit me but I dunno really.

I had my colours done many years ago and dusted it off about a year ago and have been making a conscious effort to wear colours that suit me. Pretty sure I'm a clear spring as I definitely suit coral and aquamarine type colours.
I follow the kettlewell fb feed. Unfortunately some of the clothes cn be a bit frumpy and some folks seem to have taken the whole thing to heart too much and look like CBeebies presenters. But it is nice to see and wear colourful outfits.

I have really studied my colours. I've had them "done" twice.
Actually though, wearing shapes to suit your figure is more important. The right style in the wrong colour looks far better than the wrong style in the perfect colour

Yeah, a bit. My personality and style is very different from what my appearance suggests.

I adore pink, neons, a super 80s aesthetic, and anything sparkly or brightly coloured or patterned, especially animal patterns (not animal print, but like a pattern of tiny llamas), and I also like fluffy jumpers. I'd dress like a Lisa Frank trapper keeper if I had my druthers.

But I look like a cross between Bebe Neuwirth and Kate Fleetwood with maybe a tiny bit of Frida Kahlo: very white skin, poker straight black hair, very thick bushy black eyebrows, dark brown eyes, black eyelashes, and strong cheekbones. I look like I should at all times be wearing intimidating 1980s-style power suits.

I know I suit tailored neutrals but I just find that so boring. So I try to find some kind of balance, but I also wear pink a lot, even though I think it looks weird on me.

@Floisme , I'm sure I get it wrong a lot, but I sometimes get comments about wearing a uniform. I like good quality and wear lots of black and navy, but will wear bright colours.
I go by feel and is the item practical. If the item is uncomfortable or doesn't have useful pockets, or if I feel self-conscious, I won't wear it.

When I was much younger, I used to get comments on my appearance like 'That lipstick doesn't suit you', 'That top makes you look really busty' (not in a good way), 'Why are you wearing that muck on your face?', 'You have short legs' etc. It made me feel like a freak.
If they said that now, I'd ask them why they said it and what benefit did they get from telling me.
The black and navy is probably me subconsciously trying to avoid such comments.

If i wear something a bit more flamboyant, I do feel more confident.

Generally speaking the colours I like are colours that suit my colouring - v dark ashy brown hair, fair skin and blue/grey eyes. I thought maybe I should branch out with my colour palette then did various colour tests online and realised that I’d unwittingly been largely true to type (80% black 😆). I still definitely wear colours that don’t suit me but I like them - I have a bright orange Halloween print dress which I love but does nothing for my complexion. But I don’t feel like my clothes need to flatter me all of the time - I should probably switch my burgundy dungarees for Trinny & Susannah wrap dresses and bias cut a-line skirts but it’s not going to happen!

Blimey, people were rude!

Totally agree!

Who on earth used to talk to you like that KirstenBlest? No need to say but what knobber.

The right style in the wrong colour looks far better than the wrong style in the perfect colour

I agree that shape is important too, but at least for me, I got more compliments in a random t-shirt in the right colour than in a gorgeous well fitting dress in the wrong one. So now I try to do both.

@Aozora13 , Trinny & Suzanna didn't like bias-cut skirts, but they did love a wrap dress.
They seemed to love collarless jackets and dresses over trousers.

I would not wear a wrap dress or a dress over trousers. Collarless jackets do not love me, and I love a bias cut skirt.