Purple + Light Neutrals: Purple (especially lavender) worn with nude accessories is ultra-elegant and an excellent way to ease into purple if you are not used to wearing it. Light purple or lavender worn with white will make you look soft and romantic. Deep purple and white have a whole lot more contrast and would make you look bold and dramatic.
Pointers On Wearing Purple this Fall
Purple adds drama to even the most average outfit, creating excitement and immediate impact. Would you wear purple? Could you wear purple? What message does it send?
What Purple Symbolizes
Purple has long been known as the color of royalty and is associated with wealth and leadership. It’s also a color associated with spirituality and magic. The positive psychological power of purple is that it is intuitive, sensitive, and imaginative.
What Colors Make up Purple
When you break purple down, it is a mix of red and blue – warm and cool, feminine and masculine. You can find purple in dozens of shades, from lavender to ultraviolet, indigo to plum, eggplant, and deep royal purple. There is a shade for everyone! Pick a more yellow-based, warmer purple if your skin has yellow undertones, or if your skin is more on the pink side, choose a deep, cool purple or a dark plum.
Purple is a color that works year-round. Traditionally, we’ve worn deep, intense purples in the fall and lighter, softer purples in the spring and summer, but now that division has been thrown out the window. This fall, we see all shades of purple, from pastel purple to pink-infused orchid purple to deep, cool purple, mixed with traditional fall shades.
Purple is striking for formal events when you want to be noticed. It’s also commanding at work as an alternative to black. Purple is livelily worn casually with your favorite jeans or as athletic wear. The only time you don’t want to wear purple is at a funeral in Thailand. There, it is considered a color of mourning and is reserved for the deceased’s spouse!
Choosing the Right Colors to Wear
Let us start by stating an important disclaimer: if you love a look, we believe that confidence is all it takes to pull it off! That being said, it’s no secret that some clothes are more complementing than others. You know what we mean – there are outfits you love because of how THEY look, and other outfits you love because of how they make YOU look.
This week, we’re addressing the latter of the two by identifying the most complementary wardrobe color palettes. To find yours, here is what we suggest:
First, determine if you have a cool or warm skin tone.
There are several ways to make this determination:
- Check the color of the veins in your arm. Blue/purple veins typically indicate a cool skin tone, while blue/green indicate warm.
- Note whether gold or silver jewelry fits you best. Gold typically indicates warm-toned, and silver indicates cool.
- Do you look best in white or ivory? White indicates cool-toned, while ivory indicates warm.
Still unsure? Check out an online quiz (trust us, there’s a lot), like this one from Seventeen magazine.
What does this mean for your wardrobe? For cool-toned individuals, it means you have pink/red undertones in your skin. Therefore, you will look great in jewel-tones like blue, green, pink, purple, turquoise, and blue-based (rather than orange-based) reds. On the other hand, warm-toned individuals have golden or peach undertones. Your best colors include earth tones like browns, olive greens, and yellow-greens, as well as orange-based reds and ivories.
Second, further narrow your color palette based on your skin hue.
If you have a light complexion, go for dark and pastel shades of the colors that you determined in step one. If you have a medium complexion, look to the middle of the color shade spectrum. Also, a medium complexion should not be afraid to go neon! If you have a darker complexion, your color sweet spot will be bright (but not quite neon) shades – think cobalt blue, fire-engine red, or kelly green. This complexion also lends itself to darker shades of pastels.
Last, when you want to find that one perfect color, consider your hair and eye color.
When your goal is to make your hair and eyes pop, look to the color scheme you established with the previous steps. Select a color from the group that complements your eyes and contrasts with your hair. For example, if you have blue eyes and dark hair, choose a lighter blue color to accentuate your eyes and serve as a light backdrop for your hair. If you have brown eyes and brown hair, a color like gold or tan can bring out the flecks in your eyes while still contrasting enough with your hair to let it shine.
Tell us by commenting below, what colors do you love to wear, and what other tricks do you use to find the shades that best complement you?
