A few years ago, my Mum 'had her colours done'. I didn't know much about it, only really as a joke in Bridget Jones' Diary! But the more mum talked about it and the more I thought about it, the more I thought it sounded like a good thing and something I would benefit from. You try different colour scarves to see which colours show your complexion off to the best light. You are given a season and are to wear colours from that season's range. Mum is a winter and I was keen to be one too as there are lots of blues in winter and most of my wardrobe seemed to be blue. My main reasons for doing the session were to feel comfortable and confident in what I was wearing, and not have to feel stressed or awkward and just be able to go about my days without having to worry about how I looked. Very kindly Mum bought me a voucher for the colour analaysis class as my birthday and Christmas present and especially kindly she bought one so that my sister in law could come too.
Last Saturday was the big day and we headed off to Witney for 9.20am ready to learn the truth...! I was quite apprehensive about the whole thing and was very glad I had H. with me. I can't really remember at all what I was nervous about now, but I know I was anxious! The class was run in a lady's house who had a room transformed for her classes. There were two other ladies in our group, a mother-in-law, daughter-in-law combo who turned out to be very nice and pleasant people to undergo the experience with.
We had a little introduction about it including the science of it - I didn't really follow it or necessarily believe in it but oh well! We looked at the colour wheel which is divided into 144 colours, 36 in each season. Winter and Summer are blue based seasons and Spring and Autumn are yellow based seasons. She went through us one at a time and we sat in front of the mirror with everyone else watching us, rather surreal but we got used to it in the end. Lisa started by comparing a blue based and a yellow based colour scarf across our chests to find out which half we are in. We had to look at the face rather than the colour and see if the effect produced dark shadows on the face. Apparently it's easier to see on others more than on yourself and I did feel I sometimes started to notice a difference as colours were held up to H. Lisa was quite decisive that H. was an Autumn and then she went through the process again to decide whether she was Spring or Autumn. The next girl to have a go was a trickier one but ultimately came down as an Autumn. I was next and as Lisa held up the blue based colours, I was inwardly thinking 'yes, go on, like it' as I knew I really wanted to be Winter! It didn't always work though, and Lisa was a bit 'well, that Ines ok, but that ones not bad either'. In the end I was disappointed that she came down on the yellow based side. And then she went through deciding about Autumn or Spring and settled on Spring, which I was quite surprised about. But then as the last lady was done, I looked at the Spring colours more and over lunch I began to be quite excited by it. I had felt quite sure that Lizzie would have been a Spring and so I was quite surprised that that would be me. I did wish many a time during the day that it would be such fun to have Lizzie there with us. I started to quite like many of the Spring colours and I realised there were quite a few blues in there.Although Lisa did say I was Spring verging on Summer and Winter which was rather funny! I did feel that as I had been a bit tricky to determine, I could decide that actually it doesn't matter so much which colours I wear and I can get away with keeping the clothes I already have that I like!
After lunch it was make up time. Lisa took each of us in turn and applied primer, then foundation, blusher and lipstick, eyeing us up first to decide which colours were right. The phrase of this part was 'lipstick is your backbone'! Then she went through all 36 colours giving each a ranking (one tick was good, then two ticks, then one star and then finally 2 stars was the wowest of all) and also what percentage of our clothing could be in that colour (100%, 75%, 50%, 25%). I throughly enjoyed this bit in a slightly hysterical way which I was having to suppress as it was all quite serious which just made it funnier! Lisa was calling out the colour name, percentage and star rating and one of us was having to write it down. She went quite quickly so as not to lose her eye.
On my turn, Lisa went through several lipsticks before starting my make up and was putting different colour scarves on me. She said she wouldn't sleep well if she wasn't sure what I was. In the end she put the stripes on me, a sort of blanket with stripes of several colours from one season. And from those things, she categorically said I was a winter!!! It was quite funny that I was now what I had wanted to be but I was a little bit disappointed! I had really started to be excited about being a Spring! But Lisa was quite decisive and went to town with my lipsticks. I was quite horrified by the colours - so so vibrant! Lisa was giving each of us a 'walk the dog' colour, an everyday colour and a 'knock 'em dead' colour. I kept asking which my walk the dog one was because they all seemed shocking to me!
After everyone has found their **100 colours, we were given our colour wallets and goody bags and had the option of buying some make up. I bought one lipstick of the least vibrant colour.
That
evening, I had a little time in Summertown and started a look in some clothes
shops with my colour wallet. It really was quite daunting as I wasn't familiar
with the location of the colours on the strips and I felt like I had to check
every item of clothing in the shop - I wasn't just going for the colours I
normally liked. I then find myself in the funny position of being excited that
I'd found an item in a colour that matched the chart and being tempted to buy
it, but then realised that actually it was a quite hideous style of clothing
that I didn't like at all! I was really feeling I'd need to spend quite some
time familiarising myself with my chart before attempting much further
shopping. I did though, after much deliberation and to-ing and fro-ing buy a
'going-out' (?!?!?) top in what I hoped was close to ice blue. I was just
in the mood of feeling really keen to embrace the change and feel I was some
way on the way to feeling stylish! I then spent some time in a cafe
reading the little winter notebook and the catalogue we had been given from
cover to cover.
Back home we excitedly chatted through out
experiences. And then came the big wardrobe sort, which I was very
excited about. One of my main aims had been to be able to get rid of
clothes without feeling guilty! H helped me greatly: it was not a task I would
have looked forward to actually starting on my own. It was a good
exercise for familiarising myself with the colours on the Winter strips.
It also made me realise how hard I find it to tell if a colour is close enough
to what's on the paper. I also didn't find it helpful that Lisa said, we
obviously aren't restricted to just the 36 colours on the chart but can go for
the ones that are in between the two colours. I found colours in
different seasons so similar that it really didn't help me to decipher whether
my garments were or were not winter. Also, I realised just how many of my
clothes are very faded from the wash! The big revelation of the session
was that the majority of my wardrobe was already Winter - which is what I had
been thinking before the day, but I didn't expect it to his extent. I probably
half filled a black bag for the charity shop, but I did still keep several
items that weren't the right colour but I like so that is indeed cheating!
It was funny the following week really, as I
thought more on my new approach to dressing. Despite saying before hand,
that my reason for doing it was to be able to feel confident in the clothes I
was wearing, I guess I had then had a kind of the hope that I would suddenly be
wearing a new radical outfit and feel super new and amazing in it! So
very irrationally in that sense I was disappointed that so many of my clothes
ended up being my season. It doesn't make any sense, as I hadn't wanted
to have to buy new clothes, but now I was disappointed not to have the excuse
to! So I decided I would investigate the Kettlewell catalogue and I ended up buying a new dress from there in one of my **100 colours which I do really like and am now tempted to get more from there. I also decided to be brave and start wearing my lipstick. It got one comment the very first time I wore, but it has not been commented on since and I now feel ok wearing it and that maybe it's not quite as vibrant as I first thought so I might look into buying one of the 'knock 'em dead colours'!
Now a few weeks on I am feeling more settled in my self after the roller coaster emotions. I can't quite remember which of my wardrobe clothes are the ones I kept because they are winter and which because I didn't want to get rid of them, but I am generally happy wearing them all. And I know if I want to feel good about myself, I can pop some lipstick on and wear a kettlewell outfit. The other reassuring thing about the whole experience, is that apparently Winters can go grey gracefully! So that's one less thing to worry about!
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