Back to the Fuchsia!

For my birthday I was booked into a "Men's Colour Day" for a consultation by "House of Colour". It was good fun and for what it is worth I'll give you my thoughts.

The consultation began with a pep talk about how we dress builds confidence and authority etc - as a Christian I wondered if there should be an alternative course in "humility dressing" as opposed to "power dressing"! But I kept this subversive thought to myself!

You may already be aware of the principles behind the assessment - the consultant experiments with a variety of colours to see which suits your skin tone. There are four options named after the seasons. I was fairly confident that I had "blue toned" [as opposed to "yellow toned] skin, which would make me a Summer or Winter - my guess was Summer. But the surprising conclusion was Winter! Certainly the "wrong" colours did look ghastly, but I wasn't quite so convinced
about what was deemed "right".

I cross-checked with Susannah & Trinny's book "What Not To Wear". S&T are a couple of savvy fashionistas here in the UK. They only have three colour palettes -
and of the Winter equivalent they state "you are definately not this if you have hazel eyes [I do], freckles [that's me], or auburn hair [well, allowing for the flecks of grey, I qualify]." Hmmmm. What to make of it all?

Returning to the Susannah & Trinny palettes; in addition to the "what suits you" they had a "what does NOT suit you" colourwise. Using THAT I could combine the two, otherwise incompatible, schemes. By a process of elimination I came back to the original diagnosis! I'm a Winter. Well, I'll go the foot of our stairs!

If there is any value in these things it is in determining what colours DO NOT suit you - but that can be pretty helpful! My advice is: treat the whole thing as a bit of fun, don't get too hung up about what colour is deemed to be "yours". A great piece of advice I once came across is - "rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of the wise"!