I was going out last night. Cold when I finished work, (my office has NO heating), I came in and quickly changed my top, putting on a jumper instead of the long-sleeved jersey top I’d been wearing. The jumper happened to be black. As I was already wearing black jeans, black socks and black shoes, this created a somewhat black from neck to toe ‘look’. One of my friends, late on in the evening, asked ‘Why are you wearing all black, are you depressed?’.
I wasn’t actually depressed last night, but his comment got me thinking…
A few years ago I wore black from head to toe all year round. It was so easy. All my clothes went with everything else in my wardrobe, I never had to think about it, just select a top and some ‘bottoms’ and it would ‘go’. There was also the whole thing of thinking that black is slimming, which it so isn’t. My husband used to get really fed up of it and beg me to wear some colour, he said I looked like a Greek widow, (I said that the Greek bit was a problem but widowhood could be arranged if he didn’t keep his opinions to himself). My mother would look in disgust at each new black item I bought. My children never saw me in colours when they were young.
A couple of years ago, newly single, I started to buy some new clothes, there was no conscious decision to ditch the black but gradually more colour started to creep in to my wardrobe.
There are some colours I never wear. There is no yellow in my wardrobe, I have never seen an item of yellow clothing that I’ve had any desire to wear; when tanned my skin is slightly olive toned and yellow just makes me look… oh I can’t think of the word…ugh… that’s it I look ugh in yellow. I never wear white, for one thing if I wear a white top it reminds me of both my school days and my days of working as a waitress, (in a hotel, not a cocktail bar, even if it was the 80s), and white just makes me feel huge, with several u’s, huuuuge. Baby pink makes me look and feel like a wibbly wobbly blancmange. Proper red, pillar box, scarlet, type red, makes me feel incredibly pale and washed out, wearing red actually makes me feel run-down and slightly ill.
I have no idea if the colours I do wear suit me. I’m normally found in jeans, so my bottom half is still in the dreaded black, or occasionally dark blue… just for a change. On my top half I wear blues, dark pinks, (raspberry sort of pink rather than baby pink), burgundy, browns. I still feel happier in darker shades rather than brights.
I realised last night that I don’t like myself in all black anymore, I wasn’t depressed last night, but neither was my choice of outfit doing anything to make me feel good about myself. The black batwing sweater that I loved so much a year ago just felt big, black and batty. I know I can look better than I looked last night.
So that’s it, I’m ditching all black for good, never again will I dress in black from neck to toe, from now on there will always be some colour in my life.
How about you, does the colour you’re wearing reflect your mood? Does the colour you’re wearing make you feel good or bad? Are there any colours you never wear, and why?
Good move. Ditch the masses of ‘easy cheap’ black but keep some elements of class. Every woman needs a LBD after all.
It’s either easier for a man (you don’t get judged so harshly) or it’s harder (men can’t wear bright colours well) but whatever it is, I still prefer my black clothes for dressed up times.
Viv you have similar olivey colouring to me. I think the word you were looking for to describe how yellow makes us look is “jaundiced”. No shade of yellow has ever done anything other than scream ‘ outpatient from the liver care unit’ for me. Orange tends to be the colour that does the most for me though, give it a go. I do agree with the previous comment though. Don’t ditch all the black, it is very useful, just not worn head to toe.
Apart from your light olivey skin tone when tanned, you didn’t tell us anything about your colouring, so PLEASE DO. Or better yet, give us a shot of you in all your glory. Then we can come on all colour-me-beautiful with you (personally, I don;t buy that method, but you know what I mean).
Also bear in mind that the best colours for you may change throughout your life. I am naturally pale-skinned, blue-eyed and dark blonde – and I found that pillar box or London bus red worked well with that combo in my 20s and early 30s. However, as I got older, I seemed to be drawn to less harsh tones (though never pastels – heaven forbid!).
Since discovering that I am a natural redhead in need of chemical assistance (in the form of my friendly neighbourhood hairdresser wielding a pot of purple gloop that inexplicably turns my noggin a bright copper tone which she tones down with stripes of strawberry blonde), I have had to rethink again. No longer could I wear burnt orange, not unless I wanted to look like a left-over satsuma festering in the bottom of the fruit bowl, but green and mauve started creeping into my pallette. As a blonde I never wore purple, it made me look like a corpse, but now it actually looks rather good. And I’m even wearing the occasional pink (though of the raspberry/watermelon variety rather than wimpish powder pink).
So, why not give us a glimpse of you so we can all get busy with the crayons in our heads and suggest the pallette that would make you utterly Drop dead Viv!?