Fashion Color Coordination Starts By Choosing What Looks Good on You

Fashion color coordination has two components.

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The first principle of chic color choices is selecting those that flatter your coloring, including complexion, hair, and eyes

The second principle is matching clothes colors so that they are pleasing to the eyes.

What Colors Should I Wear?

Small changes in the favored seasonal colors don't matter -- unless you travel in a crowd that lives and dies by fashion. No one is going to rush up to you with a color wheel and declare,

"My dear, that fuchsia is so out this season. Why aren't you wearing honeysuckle?"

If a color looks good on you and enhances the other colors in your ensemble, you are sure to gain compliments.

Winter and Summer Coloring Oversimplifies Your Choices

One simple way of advising women what colors to wear is to divide types into the warm or summer complexions and the wintry, pale type.

Warm skin tones are yellow or darker, and this type -- we are told -- has dark eyes and hair. Warm colors, such as red, rust, olive green, and dusty yellow are recommended.

The wintry, pale type has an underlying pink skin tone, pale eyes, and light hair. Pastels and medium light colors in the blue, green, purple, and pink families often look well on these women.

This simple answer to the question, "What colors should I wear?" is unreliable and unrealistic.

There Are More Than Two Perfect Fashion Color Palettes

Human appearance is much more complicated summer skin and eyes versus winter skin and eyes.

Warm-skinned women, with an underlying gold or yellow cast to the skin, may have gray, hazel, or blue eyes. Pale women may have dark hair and eyes.

Here is an illustration of the complexities of fashion color coordination. Is there a color you believe you simply cannot wear? Yet one day while shopping, you came upon a variation of that color that looks simply stunning on you?

For example, redheads often are told that they cannot wear red or pink. However, there are shades of red and pink that may look just right.

White and some pastels may look absolutely stunning on some dark-skinned women. On the other hand, it may make some older fair women look completely washed out and ghostly. Jewel tones may provide a good pick me up.

Two Guidelines for Noticing Your Perfect Colors

Here are a few tips for fashion color coordination that suits you:

#1. Pay attention to compliments.

Some of us have trouble accepting compliments.

Instead of accepting them with a gracious "Thank you," we provide the other person with a litany of reasons why his or her evaluation is wrong.

Not only is "You mean, this old thing?" syndrome rude, it blocks you from taking stock of what colors and styles are most flattering.

Fashioning ourselves in later life means stepping into compliments with grace and inner style, providing a model for younger women to grow into their own confidence, and using this feedback to fine-tune our esthetics and our wardrobes.

#2. Notice what colors make you feel good.

When a color gives you a boost, it shows in the way you carry yourself and on your face.

This combination is more likely to earn compliments from others, too.

Notice when you smile at yourself in the mirror when you catch your reflection wearning a particular color.

Buy accessories in these colors, such as a scarf that you can wear near your face, so you can incorporate them often into your outfits.

Matching Clothes Colors Is Easy In Our Everything-Goes World

Very few color combinations are unacceptable these days.

Coral and lime green, yellow and turquoise, brown and black, navy blue and brown - breaking color taboos can result in striking and dramatic ensembles.

One woman can pull off a flamboyant mismatch of colors and even mix prints with panache.

Another gal doesn't feel comfortable unless her outfit is a pull-together and polished selection of conservative fashion color coordination.

"What Colors Should I Wear?" Is About Personality, Too

The success of your matching clothes colors depend on your personality and approach to life, as much as on your skin type and what's popular this season.

Fashion color coordination is highly personal.

Pay attention to what other people like on you and experiment.

If you truly cannot decide, "What colors should I wear?" and can afford it, consider hiring a fashion color expert with good references and credentials.