Color Theory

Carole Jackson is my hero. She wrote Color Me Beautiful

Had I been born a decade earlier, odds are I’d have bounded into the 80s as a spry 20-something yuppie with color swatches tucked safely under my right elbow. I’d have been ready at a moment’s notice to whip out the swatches and illuminate women to their correct seasonal palette.

fuchsia
fuchsia

In case you don’t know, Color Me Beautiful is the most successful of all color typing books. First published in 1980, Color Me Beautiful is to color analysis what The Godfather is to mobster movies. All subsequent books advising women of their best colors owe their existence to Ms. Jackson’s four seasonal palettes. Depending on the combination of your hair and eye colors and your skin tone, you are either a Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall. The colors that make up your seasonal palette are the colors that look best on you.

Modern fashion advisors (Stacy and Clinton) try to buck the system and deviate from Ms. Jackson’s palettes. They say you can wear any color you want as long as you choose the right shade. This is America; you can wear any color you want. Some colors that aren’t in your seasonal palette may even look good on you. But you and I and Ms. Jackson aren’t interested in good; we want best.

We want to wear the colors that look best on us.

As Paula Reed writes in Style Clinic, “Find out what colors light up your face, bring out the color of your eyes, and flatter your hair and wear them—all the time.” Touché!

Ollie Jean Owen
Ollie Jean Owen

Ms. Jackson and I have been together now for years. My mom picked up a first edition Color Me Beautiful book at a garage sale. Mom was a Bargainista before Bargainistas were cool, but that is another post. Prior to my mom, the book belonged to Ollie Jean Owen. I know this because Ollie signed the inside cover. I wonder if she read the book. Maybe color theory didn’t stick with her or she thought she’d mastered it. For whatever reason, Ollie’s copy landed in the garage sale pile. Little did she know she sold a diamond for a dollar that day. If she’s still around, I hope she’s wearing her palette.

Mom color analyzed me, a teenager, as soon as she acquired the book. I was and still am a Winter. Mine is the only palette that includes pure black and white. Orange is dead to me. My yellow is lemon. My browns are limited to chocolate so dark it looks black (also my favorite flavor at Baskin-Robbins).

Although I’ve known for close to three decades what colors I’m supposed to wear, staying within my palette has been a process. Four short years ago my closet was an overflowing mess. Nothing to Wear? by Jesse Garza and Joe Lupo initiated the detox. It remains my favorite closet purging book. It’s So You! by Mary Sheehan Warren was a godsend, as was I Don’t Have a Thing to Wear by Julie Taggart and Jackie Walker.

paint swatches
pick your palette

Sheehan Warren offered an updated color chart based on Ms. Jackson’s palettes. So did Garza and Lupo in their 2008 book Life in Color. But you know there ain’t nothing like the real thing.

For wardrobe color correction, I returned to Ms. Jackson’s pages.

Today I love and wear every item in my closet, and every one is in my palette. Well, almost every one. I keep a favorite mistake, purchased on a shopping trip to Chicago with my BFF. She’s a Spring. The blouse spoke to me from the rack with its vibrant reddish-orange, stained-glass design. I HAD to have it. So while my fair-faced friend bought two black dresses meant for a Winter like me, I bought a shirt that should be worn by a Spring like her.

With the exception of that blouse, the rest of my closet sings of navy, true red, fuchsia, blue, indigo, emerald, black, and white. It’s been a good year for jewel tones. Ms. Jackson would be proud, and so would my mom.

When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet. Proverbs 31:21 NIV

My Yellow is also Coldplay with their strange, mesmerizing song.

What’s your best color to wear?
What’s your favorite mistake?

This post marks our 300th. Thank you for reading!

 

Homegirls and BFFs

me & Keno

So I’m in the J Crew dressing room one Saturday, trying on their latest confection. Outside I hear, “Kalie, you in here? It’s Christy, your BFF.”

Kalie and her BFF Christy were promptly reunited. How sweet. Meanwhile in my little stall, I was coming undone.

“Where is my BFF? Why can’t I have a BFF?” I said to myself. “I need a BFF to find me another size and bring me more cute stuff to try on and tell me how good it looks. All I have is…is…is Keno the salesperson!…(whimper)…”

Now I love me some Keno. And I love me some Desiree, Mary, Michael, and the rest of the très chic staff at my local J Crew store. I only learned what BFF means a few months ago when I joined Facebook. Didn’t realize it was the need of the moment until then.

me & K

Truth is I have plenty of BFFs, thank you very much, Kalie and Christy. I don’t limit myself either. There’s enough love to go around.

That particular Saturday, one of my BFFs was at a first grade basketball game, another at a Girl Scout cookie meeting, another busy at work in her home office. Beautiful and responsible, those girls.

Half a dozen or so of my BFFs from high school still live 750 miles away in the place we grew up. Like to think of them as the Homegirls. They make me laugh like no one else on earth can.

My college BFFs are dotted along I-40 in exotic locales like Raleigh, Winston-Salem and Asheville. Two more live on polar opposite coasts with me smack-dab in the middle of the heartland. These women knew me before I knew me.

There’s my Chicago BFF who now lives in Milwaukee. And my sassy St. Louis BFF who moved to Cincinnati last year. Miss them terribly.

Then there are my BFFs who are married to my husband’s best friends–each the epitomy of grace. The guys are swell, too.

me & A & B

Add to that my old church and work BFFs, my BSF BFFs (try saying that fast three times), my new BFFs I’m cultivating offline and online, and my fabulous lifelong BFFs who also happen to be related to me by blood or marriage.

Any of these women would have gone shopping with me that Saturday if it were possible. But life happens.

me & K

Husbands and significant others happen. Divorces happen. Jobs. Kids. Moves and miles. Before you know it, seeing each other becomes a special occasion.

Kalie and Christy, if you’re listening, enjoy your free Saturdays together. They won’t last forever. But your BFFs? They get sweeter with time.

Friends love through all kinds of weather, and families stick together in all kinds of trouble. Proverbs 17:17 The Message 

A little something for all the friends in the house. Go ahead, let your hair down