Have you had your colours done? That was a common question back in the eighties when a craze to find out your "season" was all all the rage. Anyone could enhance their appearance by using the right shades of colours for their wardrobe, accessories and make-up. It actually made a lot of sense, because you could focus on the colour palette that was the most becoming to your skin tone and everything coordinated without effort.
It began in 1980 when Carole Jackson published Colour Me Beautiful, a book that outlined the colour system. She had her own colour consulting firm in New York and branches spread throughout North America. It wasn't long before other companies took notice and copied with similar systems.
I can still remember going for my session, which was limited to four people at a time. I had had to book well in advance. I was thrilled because the person giving the session had been personally trained by Carole Jackson and so I knew I was getting the real deal. I turned out to be a "spring", the rarest of all the groups and apparently had the hardest colours to find in the shops, perhaps because we make up the smallest segment of the market. Lucky winters, black, red and white always seem to be in style!
We were given a packet of colour swatches to make shopping easier, a list of our colours rated according to how well they enhanced our appearance, and a list of well-known cosmetic brands with the names of the shades that would work the best for our season.
The wonderful thing about the system was that it really did work. I saw many people transformed by wearing the right colours. And all the guess work was removed because on the back of the list that rated your best colours, there was an itemized list that told you what to buy for make-up, shoes and handbags, jewelry, hoisery, and even furs (this was the '80s). There were also instructions for hiar colour and which colours should be used as your neutrals, in other words which colours should form the basics in your wardrobe.
For years, I followed the system devotedly and had a closet of pretty snazzy coordinated clothes. Everything did work with everything else. No more silver jewelry for me, only gold as advised by Carole. But over the years, other colours started to creep into my wardrobe, and some years I just couldn't find corals, acquas and perriwinkles.
But coral seems to be everywhere this year. Hurray! When I was younger I may have been able to wear unflattering colours and still carry it off. But now I can use some extra help. So I have retrieved my copy of Colour Me Beautiful from the basement and dug around and found the plastic wallet filled with my colour swatches. The make-up list is hopelessly out-of-date, but no matter. I know the right choices to make. I was, after all, a total devotee!
An old Color Me Beautiful video that helps you determine your season and shoots you right back to the '80s is on YouTube!
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