Building a Wardrobe Week 1: Discovering Your Colors

Welcome to Part 1 of a series of posts on how to build a versatile, fashionable wardrobe on a budget, because you really need the basics before you can start playing with anything quirky or trendy, or even set your own personal style.

What colors you wear are extremely important. You want to wear colors that are going to compliment your skin tone, your hair, and your eyes, not clash with them or (worse) overwhelm your lovely natural coloring.

The first thing you need to do is figure out what “season” you are, i.e. what colors suit you best. There are a couple ways to do this. You could use some of your monthly clothing budget to pay a consultant from Color Me Beautiful to do it for you (my mom took me to see a consultant for my sixteenth birthday) or you could do it yourself. Many websites have tutorials, step-by-step instructions, or even quizzes to help you figure it out.

Once you know your season, I strongly recommend you buy the corresponding swatch from Color Me Beautiful. For example, I am an Autumn, so I own this swatch. The color swatches are indispensable when you are starting to shop; after a time your eye will get used to picking out the colors you can wear and will no longer need to carry the swatch with you.

I was approached last week by a male friend who said he liked the new blog but wondered “what about the guys”? Colors are key to male wardrobe as well — you don’t want to wear a suit or tie that clashes with your natural skin tone and coloring (God’s gift to you!) either. Here is website with a flowchart to help figure out your season and recommendations for suit, shirt, tie, shoe, and even briefcase colors that will compliment you.