Getting the Most From Your Wardrobe: Colour Combining, Part 2

Posted by Jill Chivers in Shop Your Wardrobe Strategies, Shopping, Clothes and Emotions

This post follows on from part 1 where I provided some personal examples of how I use, combine and enjoy colour in my wardrobe.

In this, the second and final part of this article, I’m going to provide you with my best tips for getting the most out of your wardrobe when it comes to colour.

Enjoy!

Three tips for getting the most out of your wardrobe when it comes to colour:

  1. Experiment and be playful.  It’s amazing what you can (re)discover about the existing items in your wardrobe when you have a creative attitude, and don’t treat your clothes like fine china.  There are far fewer rules when it comes to combining colour than we often think there are, and it’s also fun to break the rules (with style of course!) when it comes to the ensembles you pull together and what colours you combine.
  2. Inspiration is important when it comes to combining colours in new ways.  I get mine from many places including:
    • Nature.  This is one of my biggest points of inspiration – there are so many beautiful colour combinations found everywhere from the mountains to the ocean.  I challenge you to find colours that are not combined in nature! This is why ‘blue and green should never be seen’ is such a ludicrous notion and style rule – look in nature, blue and green are successfully and beautifully combined together everywhere!  Look to nature, the nature around you as well as images you see in the media, for ideas on what colour combinations you might try out.
    • Online, including photos on social media and the rare style blogs I pay attention to.  There’s only a handful of style blogs and online stylistas that I pay attention to (Imogen, Bridgette, Jo, Sylvia and Shannon are some of my regular favourites – these are real women of around my age or in the near vicinity, who have practical and inspired ways to help us explore and express our individual style).  Do be discerning in who and what you follow online, but when you find people and sites that inspire you, they can give you confidence to try new things in your own way.
    • Street style.  I love people watching and find there is much inspiration to be found in watching how ordinary, regular women put outfits together.  Sure, lots of women play it safe in their day-to-day style, but there’s lots of women you see out and about who have done something interesting or different, daring perhaps, or different to you, when it comes to how they’ve pulled their look together.
  3. Consider what colours might form part of your personal or signature style.  Some women I know have chosen a single colour as their signature style – I know women whose signature colour is red, or pink, others I know have chosen green as their signature style, another friend wears purple almost all the time.

The wonderful thing is you get to choose whether a colour suits you as a signature style item, or whether it forms part of your personal style in a more general way (here’s the difference between personal style and signature style).

My signature style is animal print, but I have a number of colours (turquoise, orange, yellow) which form part of my personal style palette; these are my “go to” colours which pop up time and again in my daily ensembles.

Colour is one of the funnest, and most impactful, ways to bring style and personality into your wardrobe.  You can choose to change your attitude and choices about colour any time you like.  If you’ve always worn X, Y and Z colours, you can choose to continue to wear them – or to add in other colours to the mix.

That’s the beautiful thing about colour.  It transforms, it communicates, it vibrates.  Choose today how you’ll use and enjoy colour in your wardrobe!

 

Be playful, get creative, let go of unhelpful rules and have some fun when it comes to colour combining!

Be playful, get creative, let go of unhelpful rules and have some fun when it comes to colour combining!

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