Color Your Style: How to Wear Your True Colors, by costume designer David

Mylar explores how to “unlock your authentic style” by leveraging colors that work

for you. It’s a riff on the old pop culture Color Me Beautiful system from back in

the 1980s. The rather militant edicts were based on a consultant holding up

swatches of fabric to the client’s face and judging whether it was unflattering or

bringing out her best. Carole Jackson, who founded it, had been a nurse who was

said to wonder why, in her crisp white uniforms, she always looked washed out,

with dark shadows under her eyes. When she retired, she noticed how much

better she looked in off-whites and beiges. She divided up those whose skin and

eye color fall into warm or cool seasons, and we all went for it. 

If you want to make a saleswoman in an upscale clothing store roll her eyes,

remark, as I sometimes do, “Oh, I can’t wear gray!”

“Why not?” she asks (already suspecting my reason).

“Because I’m an Autumn,” I whine (leaving out the sexy librarian bit).

I think we all know instinctively which colors flatter us: they’re the ones that get

us compliments vs. the ones that cause people to ask if we are unwell.

In fact, color does play an outsized role in our lives. According to the American

Academy of Ophthalmology, the human eye can detect close to 10 million different

color variations. And we thought Crayola, with its 64-count box, had the corner

on the market. The Pantone Color Institute comes out with a color of the year

and designers and manufacturers take a cue from it. Not sure about this year,

though, it is Viva Magenta.

                                                 GREEM M&M's

There’s been a myth that green M&M’s are an aphrodisiac, and the Mars

company played this up in several of their commercials. Rock stars were said to

request green M&M's backstage in the, er, Green Room. As of a recent 

disclosure, the Mars company reported that only 16% of a pack of M&M's are

green.

Even our choice of automobile color speaks volumes. The nation’s top-selling

cars are black, white, silver, or the newer battleship grey. White reflects the sun,

sensible for our hot climate; still, it seems a shame that there are so few colors

on offer. Think about it: black was the only color of Model T’s in the early 1900s.

Looks like we haven’t come so far from Henry Ford’s business model after all this

time.

As for home décor, the sober beiges, grays and whites of recent years are being

replaced with colorful floral wallpaper - think the 1970s - and bold colors like

Hale navy, bright emerald and coral. Fashion is on the same brightly-hued

wavelength.

Colors have psychological associations, too. An Atlanta friend of mine told her

husband that she was going to have the living room painted maroon.

“I HATE maroon,” he protested, “Always have.”

“Oh, alright, Dear,” she conceded in her syrupy Georgia accent and waited a few

days.

“We’re going with burgundy instead”

“Fine,” he had bought the line.

According to real estate agents, painting your front door black or slate blue can

get you a top price. I also like the contemporary soft contrast colors of shutters

like the ones on lower Logan Street. But just don’t cross the Board of

Architectural Review and paint your front door without permission as a friend of

mine on Legare Street did.