I’ve been thinking about my clothes lately; I know my wardrobe is OK, but it’s not doing everything that I want it to. Sometimes it feels like a hodgepodge: old band t-shirts mixed with tailored pants; blazers from 2010 that miraculously still fit; “event shoes” that I’ve been passing over for comfy trainers since before COVID hit. There’s no theme, no unity to what I collect. If I had to name the collection, it would literally be, “these are pieces Charlotte likes. Or needs—like that conference t-shirt she wears to bed.”
So whenever I see something that’s a new trend in clothing organization, I’m on board. Give me a vision board; give me an aesthetic with a quirky name, like “cottagecore steampunk” or “pirate on holiday”. (I’ve yet to find one of these that properly fits what I’m going for, but maybe if I just flip through a thesaurus enough times, I’ll find one…)
One of such trends that I’ve been seeing more and more of is colour analysis. I was introduced to this idea on TikTok:
There are hundreds of these videos—a woman is brought to a chair, she has a pile of striped scarfs around her neck, and they’re pulled off until they find the one that works. Her eyes light up, she smiles—this is it! The skintone! The eye colour! Everything working together in a blend that accentuates all of her features! Like Cinderella, she’s finally found her perfect fit!
Except to me—I can’t tell what the fit is. Not on myself, or on anyone else. I watch those videos the same way I tried to get into rugby in my 20s—trying hard to “get it”, waiting for the moment to hit when it would make sense, realizing about an hour afterwards that no matter how many time I went “ahh….yes, that makes sense” it just doesn’t to me.
And I’ve tried exploring my own skin, thinking that maybe I’m not getting it because I’m seeing different skin tones and hair types and eye colours….nope, still nothing. I’ve tried the filters on TikTok, where you put your face in the middle and see what feels right….nothing feels right to me. So I went on Pinterest to see if there was an alternative—and I found some colour charts that were more helpful:
(It was here that I realized that this seasonal trend, disappointedly, seems to only be made for/by white- and olive-skinned women. If you’re a woman of colour, I think this analysis of whether you’re cool or warm, summer or winter, would be much more difficult.)
So I started to deep-dive. What colour are my veins? My eyes? My skin? Well, brown-haired-blue-eyed girls go to the area of Zoey Deschanel; except my hair’s not as dark, my skin’s not as pale. I found I was a “soft autumn” until I saw that all the examples were warmer and blonder—it seems that the lighter you go on hair colour, the more the chart assumes you’re tan. I tried looking at pictures of celebrities before they were glam; I found a picture of a natural Scarlet Johansson:
I thought—yes! I know no one in Hollywood has this hair colour, but it’s close to mine; and my skintone is similar; and we both have blue eyes. (I mean we’re basically the same person—you think I should give her a call? :P). Surely someone’s done colour analysis on someone so famous! I can just copy off of her.
Turns out, since dying her hair, she’s now a Spring—completely the opposite of all the results I’d gotten so far. Sigh.
I then realized—maybe colour analysis is a load of bunk. Maybe depending on hair highlights, wigs, and self-tanner, anyone can be an anything.Yet I was still bummed. Why did I care so much?
There’s so much to think about when it comes to building a collection of clothes that I like. Truthfully, I don’t dislike my clothes; I’m going to sewing class tomorrow in a Redfox t-shirt, a pair of tailored pants I thrifted, and a long cardigan. I like that I can mix and match things.
But what would be easier—a shortcut, a way to curate pieces simply—is if I only liked one thing. If I could say confidently, pastels are my go-to; an expert told me they suited me best. And I could live in the knowledge that it was true; that I had science on my side.
Then I realized; the reason that the colour analysis wasn’t “clicking” for me in those TikToks wasn’t because there was something wrong with the way I didn’t fit neatly into categories. Truthfully, I wear the colours that make me happy. I’m cool-toned, but I prefer gold jewellery over silver, even if it’s not complimentary. I might look good in colours that are muted, pale, and pastel—but I’m also someone who drinks at least a cup of tea a day, and spills them regularly.
I wanted to impose an arbitrary rule for myself, to make It easier to look at my pieces of clothing and sort them into “yes” and “no”s, based on their colour. And I’m a little sorry to let go of what would have been a shortcut for me—an easy way to curate. But I guess I’ll have to find some other way to impose curation rules on myself.
No Small Wander 