Color Me Beautiful

My textiles/sewing teacher back in primary school had us do the Color Me Beautiful thing on each other when we were about 13 or so. You know the thing were depending on skin tone, hair colour and eye colour you were either Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter. I was quite intrigued by this concept and was really interested in having it done properly. But it isn't cheap and I was quite happy doing my own thing in picking clothes and colours.

Fast forward 20 odd years (eeep!) and I've spent a few years feeling like I've lost my clothes mojo. I look at clothes and just feel overwhelmed. Just buying a pair of jeans I have to pick between 7 different models with no real idea what kind would suit my build best. I've gotten sick of being in a clothing slump and turning 35 seemed like a good time to do something about it, so I booked a session with an image consultant as my birthday present. 4 hours one-on-one to discuss colours, colour combinations, shapes and cuts.

It was great! It felt strange to talk about me and focus on me for so long, but it was a very interesting experience. CMB has moved on somewhat over the years. Instead of seasons there are 3 pairs of opposites. Soft & Clear, Deep & Light, Warm & Cool. All six are different, so you will usually quite obviously belong to one group. However, you will probably have a secondary group as well. For instance, I am Soft which means muted colours. Clear, bright colours doesn't look good on me. But as a secondary I am Deep, which means that within the Soft colours I should aim for the darker ones as the pale ones make me look washed out. It all made perfect sense when I saw the pictures she used as examples.

She also had huge amounts of pieces of cloth in any conceivable nuance, so she would put them next to my face and next to each other so I could learn to see for myself which ones to look for. Simple, but effective. Plus I got a wallet full of swatches of colours that suit my group and she marked the ones that were particularly flattering for me personally.

When it came to body-shape, she explained that the classic hourglass shape is still the most sought after and the one most people see as most attractive. So the idea is to figure out what shape you are and then try to make it look like you are in fact an hourglass shape. As an example, I am a rectangle. If I had a waist I would be an hourglass, but no matter my weight, I just don't have much of a waist. So what I'm supposed to do is to avoid any clothes that show that I don't have a trim little waist. Instead I should aim for things with an empire waistline or something straight that can be worn with a hip belt. Either option hints at a waist, but without showing up the fact that there really isn't one.

I'm hoping that by knowing what to look for and what to put straight back on the shelf will make me less likely to have clothes that I never wear. I'm sure I'm not alone in buying something because it looks nice, but then never wearing it. It just keeps getting down prioritised compared to other clothes that somehow just are more appealing to wear.

So this weekend I am determined to get around to going through my clothes ruthlessly. Is it the right colour? Is it the right shape? Do I actually ever wear it apart from when everything else is in the wash? Then I'll have a better view of what I might need more of and I get to go shopping, which I am hoping will be a more enjoyable experience now that I know what to look for.