Not
everyone has a sense of color.
We aim to help both the color unconscious and those hampered from being reasonably fashionable by being truly color-blind.
One would like to believe this lady did not deliberately choose this combination.
Let's take a closer look.
The top and the shoes coordinate nicely. The pants would not have been my first choice, but excluding the socks, it could have been passable. What happened with the socks?
Limit
your outfit Choosing Two or Three colors
How do you choose colors that work together for your wardrobe?
Wearing side-by-side colors from the color wheel will produce a look that flows, unifies and likely slims. And the same is true when you wear tops and bottoms in different shades of the same color.
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| Choose 2 or at the most 3 of any adjoining colors on the wheel. Do not add another color! | Choose tints and shades of the same color, but remember if you choose a very light and a very dark piece, it will not have as much of a slimming effect. The most effective unifiying color combination is no combination - wear all the same shade of the same color. You can accent it with complimenting or contrasting colored jewelry. | Wearing 2 contrasting (also known as opposite colors) colors or very contrasting shades of the same color will not be slimming, and may add emphasis where you don't want it. And please do not add any more colors to your outfit. |
Here are a few color combinations that pretty much don't work together for women's clothing pieces: red with brown, red with purple, red with green, lime green with brown, green with orange, orange with purple.
Very few clothing colors are "pure". You can find purple-reds and orange-reds. You can find greenish blues and purple-ish blues. Unless the manufacturerer or store offers companion pieces, it may be hard to match or coordinate the colors. Greenish blues do not work with purple-ish blues, and the same is true for most any other color. Really look at what is called the underlying color shade or tone.
More to come later on choosing clothing colors that work.
Fashion for the Color-Blind
Let's do color shopping rules first.
If you shop in stores, be sure to ask the sales clerk what color he or she says the article is. Or you could ask another shopper! Refine the color identification. If it is red, ask if it is cherry or raspberry, or if it is green: lime or forest, etc.
Start a fashion color journal! If you are likely to forget what color an item appears to be to those who are not color-blind, write a description of the article in a book and note the color or shade in the journal too. Refer to it when choosing your outfit for the day.
Or separate your clothes and accesssories in drawers or shelves by colors you have had identified.
It is better to shop on-line or through catalogues! Both on-line shopping and catalogues tell you the color choices of the clothing or accessory. This saves you the trouble of asking someone to identify the color for you.
Then you can still use the journal or color separated approach to assembling your outfit.
The most common color-blindness is red-green and often the colors cannot be distinguished from each other. The lady pictured above may not have known the socks were the colors and pattern they really are!
Text defiitions, and images - all Contents © Jo Dibbern