Color Theory In Your Closet: Analogous Color Schemes

Analogous Scheme in Coral & Tangerine by tinyjunco featuring a shell top

We're almost to the fun part - outfits! First, a word about the color wheel. The color wheel illustrates relationships between colors. Any colors which stand in the same relationship to each other on the color wheel will 'work' or 'not work' in the same way. In the rest of this series we will be working with three relationships or color schemes: analogous, complementary, and triad. Colors in analogous relationship sit right next to each other on the color wheel. If you sliced a pie in four or six slices, all the colors in each individual slice would form an analogous scheme. Complementary colors sit right across from each other, they are opposite each other on the color wheel. Finally, triadic colors sit each one at the points of an equilateral triangle.

You will notice that i have changed the arrangement of my books on these color wheels to reflect their true position on the color wheel, as opposed to how many books i have in each hue.

First Outfit Colors in their Positions on the Color Wheel, including Lime

 In this post we'll look at a couple of outfits which illustrate analogous color schemes. The first outfit draws from the orange through red-orange hues. The first thing that strikes you about this look are the vividly saturated, super warm hot tomato skirt and sizzling tangerine blazer. Both pieces are made in fairly 'flat' fabrics with little texture. If you complete an outfit using similarly saturated, flat pieces the looks will have a strong graphic feel, almost 'mod'. But i wanted to show you a few ways you can play with this color scheme to add interest and to drive the aesthetic in different ways. You can also use these tricks to 'make do' when you have gaps in your first-choice color scheme.

The first way to vary a color scheme is to employ a number of different textures. The bag and cuff are both very close in hue and saturation to the skirt and top, but the bag is leather with a nice pebbley texture and the cuff has beautiful polished cabochons. You can also vary the saturation of the colors, as in the lightly saturated background peach of this lovely floral blouse. Prints work beautifully in analogous schemes. You can key the color scheme to any color in the print - a dominant color as in this example is the most obvious, but you can choose a less dominant color for a more dramatic, unexpected feel. Choosing saturation levels in the rest of your outfit that differ from the level in the print is a little more unexpected, but it works quite nicely. You can use this trick when you feel certain saturation levels are more flattering worn next to your face, or when you have restricted choices in your closet.

By now i hope you've noticed that the shoes are nothing like orange, red, or red-orange. They work because they are lime-green, a hue which is complementary to red-orange, or it's opposite in the color wheel. We'll discuss complementary schemes in the next post in this series. This is another way to add some spice to a color scheme - 'embed' a different color scheme into the dominant scheme. In this case, the bulk of the outfit is built around one scheme (analogous), but one part relates to a color in the rest of the outfit in another way (complementary). But you can mix any two color schemes you like. It sounds very complicated to explain the theory of it, but in practice it's easy and unexpected. This way of working with color will develop naturally as you become more conscious of color relationships.

Blue thru RedViolet Analogous Colour Scheme by tinyjunco featuring suede bags

This look is more strictly analogous. To tell you the truth i had some trouble finding enough colors to give you a variety of examples in polyvore.  This reflects my experience that within a single year or season the variety of colors offered in clothing is pretty limited. If you want to accumulate a wide range of colors to work with you need to commit to shopping over a number of years in order to accumulate a wide palette.

Anyways, getting back to this outfit, i again used patterns and pulled the dominant colors of both patterns as part of the analogous color scheme. As a rule, making sure that all of the items in your outfit are either warm or cool is a good way to keep the look pulled together and cohesive. However, analogous color schemes give you a way to get around that rule. The booties, groovy fringe bag, and scarf in this look all have warm undertones, but they work well with the cool toned skirt, blouse, jacket and other accessories because of how close they all are to each other in the color wheel. There's a lot more dramatic texture in this outfit than in the first look. In fact, using an analogous color scheme is a wonderful way to tie together a look with so many different textures and patterns going on. Traditionally you think of using a monochromatic look (one hue only) to accomplish this. But analogous schemes work just as well, are much livelier, and are a lot more on trend with this season's mass explosion of color on the fashion scene.

Second Outfit Colors in their Positions on the Color Wheel

The other aspect of this outfit i wanted to point out is the use of neutrals, in this case the silver and black jewelry and jacket hardware. Neutrals are awesome, as you can use them as much or as little as you want in any color scheme whatsoever. The true neutrals are black, white, and the range of greys (dark, medium, and light greys; warm through cool). Other colors which work as de facto neutrals are the khaki/camel/ivory range, the olive drab range, gold and silver metals, and denims. It is possible to use more than one neutral in an outfit (for example black and white). But it can get tricky, and it's hard to explain why - let me just say that it's more advanced color use. If you are just starting and want to be confident in your choices, stick to one neutral color and one neutral metal per outfit. If you just want to have fun playing around with color, go with what looks good to you and what you want to wear!

In this outfit, i pulled black from the skirt's print and silver from the jacket's hardware in choosing the jewelry to put with this look. You could switch out the blue jacket for a black one, or wear black knee high boots instead of the red-violet ones very easily and still maintain that vividly colorful effect.

Again, please ask if you have any questions. And, as you surf through your favorite style blogs, see if you can spot any outfits using an analogous color scheme! Interior design mags, fashion mags, even garden mags and all types of advertising are great to study to dissect their color schemes to sharpen your skills and find inspiration. Next up in the color series: Complementary Color Schemes.

Blue thru RedViolet Analogous Colour Scheme

Blue thru RedViolet Analogous Colour Scheme by tinyjunco featuring flutter sleeve tops

Hi all! polyvore published this automatically, i didn't mean it to - then i saw that Patti of Not Dead Yet had left a comment, so i'm leaving this up! I wasn't thinking of her at the time but she would be an absolute knockout in this look! Anyways, hopefully i'll figure this machine stuff out and publish my next color theory post later today. 

I Try A Trend

Just a short post to remind myself that yes, i do want to get me some stripes! I had the good fortune to thrift this little skirt, courtesy of my fairy godmother. It's very soft, almost circle in cut, and striped. I've been eyeing stripes for ages, especially the ones around one to one half inch in classic or neutral colors. This french blue is perfect, the color itself as well as the association. Yesterday i threw on a simple outfit based on this skirt to see if i really did like wearing stripes as much as i like thinking about wearing them.

Turns out wearing them is even more fun! The fact that the cut of this skirt is all wrong for me, and the stripes are at a strange angle, didn't even bother me. I doubt i'll wear this skirt as is very much, in fact i'm mulling over ways i can use the material (in good condition) to make a little top. But i do plan to snap up any suitable stripes i find in future. Blouse, skirt, scarf......yum. Why i didn't realize this from how much i've enjoyed wearing this CAbi striped jacket is beyond me. Maybe it's that the style of stripe is so distinct?

Any trends you're trying these days? How are you liking them? Any surprises?

Color Theory In Your Closet: Color Characteristics

Basic Color Wheel

Okay ladies, this is it: color theory in your closet! It's been wet, gloomy, and rainy here. I've been in the house working on projects, then going out for walks and having to hang up all my clothes and shoes to dry. In short, i've been presentable and pulled together but it's nothing to write home about. I've been wanting to explain color theory from the wardrobe angle for a long time now, this weather is giving me the perfect excuse!

Why would you be interested in learning about color theory? Here's some reasons. If you can grasp a few concepts about color theory you will have powerful tools for understanding what colors you like, why you like them, and how to find or create them. You will have much more confidence in choosing which colors to wear, as well as in combining colors in outfits.  You will understand how to add new colors to your wardrobe so that they harmonize with what you already have. You will be able to find great, wearable colors to buy in years when your 'regulars' just aren't in stock. You will have the ability to analyze color in outfits you find inspirational so that you can duplicate the effect or, better yet, adapt the color scheme to use your own most flattering colors.

Using color theory this way is a skill. You acquire this skill through study and practice. My goal is to give you straightforward examples and explanations of the basic color theory you can apply to getting dressed, so that you can analyze future outfits, pictures, interior designs, whatever inspires you in order to hone your skills.

Color Characteristics:
These are the terms we use to describe qualities of a particular color. They are:

Hue:
This is what you're talking about when you ask, "What color is it?" Lime green, yellow, aqua, tumeric, baby blue - these are all hues.

Saturation:
How much of the hue is contained in the color you're looking at. Think about dyeing Easter eggs. The longer you leave an egg in the dye, the more pigment it takes up and the more saturated the color becomes. This is not the same thing as a light or dark color. Below, the lime green looks lighter than the indigo because of the qualities of the individual hues, but they are both very saturated or 'full strength'.

Lime & Indigo both fully saturated

The color wheel below has had the saturation decreased to about 50%. Compare this to the color wheel at the top of this post to get an idea of what saturation means. Less saturated colors tend to feel delicate and ethereal, while fully saturated colors come across as bold and strong.

De-Saturated Color Wheel Looks Drained Of Color

Saturation has a number of applications in the wardrobe. Some people look much better in really saturated hues, while others look better in hues that aren't much saturated at all. With most people, though, how you look in various saturations depends on the hue and other characteristics. Paying attention to this color variable can help you hone in on your most flattering and preferred looks. Varying the levels of saturation in an outfit can also add a lot of interest to a look, just as varying textures does.

Color Temperature
Warm:
"Warmth" or "warm" refers to any color that has a lot of yellow (or, rarely, red) in it.

Color Wheel Drenched in Yellow is Warm

Cool:
"Cool" refers to any color that has a lot of blue in it.

Color Wheel Dipped in Blue is Cool

Notice i said 'any color'. In these pictures i've taken my original color wheel and altered the entire photo. In the first one i added yellow, in the second i added cyan. This affects the various colors to different degrees, but you can see that indeed every color is altered. Yellow in the cool color wheel is cool, no longer warm. You can see this cool yellow in many flowers, especially daffodils and tulips. You can also see it in lemons which haven't yet ripened fully, which have a green cast.

The blues in the hot color wheel become warm with the addition of yellow. More people are aware of this, due to the popularity of aqua and turquoise (both warm blues). Most of the purples i see are cool, but you can see that the purple of The UFO Experience in the hot color wheel is very warm.

This is vital information for your wardrobe. The bulk of people look much better in either warm or cool toned colors. First, educating your eye to spot the difference will help you when you're picking out clothing. Secondly, you now know that you don't need to stay away from all blues if you're better in warm tones, or all yellows if you prefer cool tones. If you want to wear those colors you just need to find (or create) those colors with the undertone you prefer. Cultivating your ability to spot warm and cool tones will also help you in creating a cohesive color scheme.

Let's say you love reds so you decide to acquire a number of red pieces for your wardrobe. They'll all be red so they'll all 'go', and you can mix and match as you like. However, warm reds and cool reds generally look awkward next to each other.  If you can't spot warm vs. cool, or worse if you don't even know about warm vs. cool, you could easily end up with both temperatures in your closet. You'll end up frustrated, because your plan doesn't work - you've been diligent about only buying reds but they still don't 'jive'. Learning about these color characteristics and taking them into consideration when you're planning and when you're shopping is crucial to developing a truly easy to use wardrobe.

The last three color characteristics refer to ways you can alter a hue.
Tint: lightening a pure hue by adding white. This is how pastels are created, by adding white to a pure cool hue. But tints are more popular in painting than in fabrics - it makes more sense to just use less pigment on a bleached fabric to achieve a 'tint'.

Shade: Darkening a pure hue by adding black.

Tone: Altering a pure hue by adding grey.

Shades and tones are very popular in clothing. Designers love to do this because altering a group of disparate fabrics, all in the same way, will help to tie the end result together visually. It's kind of a short cut - but it works! And you can use this technique, too. I will often 'tea dye' any whites that look too glaring or cool for my warm coloring. I'll give the same treatment to prints with a lot of too-white white. I use orange pekoe, the kind Lipton uses, as it adds warm tones of yellow, orange, and grey-brown. Other teas (for example Earl Grey) will yield a grey tone, as will RIT dye's Pearl Grey. This particular grey imparts a cool grey tone, quiteuseful for ladies who prefer cooler colors. You can add a little yellow or blue to your dye bath to intensify the warm or cool effect, respectively. I can't tell you how often i've used this trick to make whites wearable!

L to R: Original prints, Tea-Dyed Prints (Warm), Pearl Grey Dyed Prints (Cool)

 Here i've taken a couple of prints and tea dyed one pair, then dyed another pair with RIT Pearl Grey. I've included the original un-dyed prints so you can observe the way this process changes the various colors and the overall feel of the prints.

Admittedly, this part of color theory is not all that scintillating. But you do need to have a grasp of these basic concepts in order to excel at and understand our next post's topic: creating and manipulating color schemes. In other words, how do you use this info to create great, flattering outfits and choose colors for your wardrobe with confidence.

As always, please ask about anything that seems confusing or that you'd like more info about. Thank you for reading!

Please Accept My Regrets...

for the unintentional preview of upcoming posts! Why blogger puts the 'Publish' button right next to the 'Save' button i'll never know - but i do know why it's a bad idea.

On the run today, i am sorry for any inconvenience, steph

...And Then Remove One Piece......

Remember that old 'rule' about getting dressed so that you look like a classy lady, and not some overdone tramp?  "Get dressed, and then when you think you are finished remove one piece of jewelry...." Kinda boring, but i can see the point of it. After all, it's nice to have the focus be on you, rather than all the stuff you're wearing. This method can help you to achieve this goal. On the other hand, this rule has a little nastiness to it as well: don't trust yourself, always second guess your instincts, you need to make sure you don't stand out, better to fade into the background...

For good or for ill, this cliche did come to mind as i put together this outfit. Here in the SF Bay Area we've had a pretty mild winter this year. Only one frost or two, with weeks of temperatures in the 60sF. Plenty of clear blue skies. That's nice, but it does have it's drawbacks, namely air pollution and worries about summer drought and fire danger. So when March rolled around and we started to get a lot of rain i was very grateful. As the weather systems swept through the landscape, they took the particulates and pollen with them, creating relief for many allergic eyes, throats, and noses.

But i am growing tired of grey, overcast skies. It's a little gloomy.That's why i decided to whip up a nice, bright, sunnily colored look. I don't know how apparent it is in the pictures, but the over the knee socks i'm sporting are pink. The shade is quite close to my skin tone, which helps me feel okay about wearing them. Otherwise i would feel like they were too overwhelming! Normally with a look like this one, i'd wear some type of scarf around my neck or on the hat. But I found that this outfit was right on the edge for me. Any more color or distractions and it would feel forced and overdone, like i'd been caught in some type of tangerine tornado! Auntie Em!!!!

I had luck on my walk. In the park up the street i had a long visit with our resident coyote. I'm guessing this could be a mother coyote, as i thought i could spy a teat or two, and her (?) tail had lost most of it's hair (some mammals pull hair out of their tails to line the nest or den for the babies). After this encounter, and a ways down the road, a man walking his teensy dog said, "Pretty outfit!". I don't often get compliments like that on my daily walk. I took the opportunity to let him know coyote was out and about. He thanked me sincerely  while we both looked down at his friendly, pint-sized (coyote snack sized?) pooch.

Thank you again for your advice and commiseration regarding my recent bellyaching on the blog. I can report that i have purchased two lengths of fabric suitable for making structured blouses (shell pink linen and white eyelet). I have sketched up two versions of this Kay Unger blouse as guidelines for these fabrics, and i've in the middle of developing patterns for them. I really don't like to go on and on about how something bugs me, come up with a great solution based on other people taking the time and trouble to help me out - and then not do it! Your comments and putting my thoughts out here in public help keep me on track to accomplish my goals. I can't tell you how much i appreciate you all!

I sketch in pencil with a light hand. I punched up the contrast in GIMP a bit so you can see my ideas a little more clearly. The pink is very warm and beautiful with a lovely sheen to it, and heavy enough that this blouse will end up as more of a shirt-jacket than just a shirt. I had been keeping an eye on this eyelet for months. It was $18 a yard, and when the store marked it 'Half Off" i jumped on it. The dense, geometric embroidery takes care of any overly girly or underwear-ish connotations as well as providing plenty of ventilation. I'm very excited about finally having a proper 'white shirt' for daily wear - the Kay Unger's silk is staring to get a little fragile, which discourages me from wearing it too much. But when i do wear it i enjoy it so! It's very fun to see things taking shape.

Have you made any progress on wardrobe resolutions?  If not, what stands in your way?

Hey. Remember What You LOVE

Today i'm bringing up a sensitive topic. It's sensitive in our culture generally, and even more so in the style blogging community. Recently i've been noticing a number of conversations about our society's ideas of 'dressing in proportion', or more precisely how to dress so that your figure more closely resembles 'the ideal'. I surprised even myself by how strongly i reacted against this enterprise.

I do realize that bucking the norms we've been raised with is so much easier said than done. And i do appreciate that canny deployment of clothing can lessen the appearance of saddlebags, floppy arms, a flat yet saggy butt. In fact, i use many of these 'proportion tricks' myself, and have no qualms about it. I'll happily share and explain these principles with friends and on my blog.

But i do have qualms about how this approach to dressing can dominate all other concerns. It so easily becomes another way to criticize, to measure ourselves and find we are lacking.  How quickly this approach metamophoses into, "We know you're just this side of deformed, everyone is noticing it, but use these techniques and you may succeed in masking your ghastliness..." We're presented with ways to find out exactly where and how we don't match what is normal or pleasing, and fix-it tricks so that we can 'pass' (as long as we keep our clothes on).

I concede that here i'm taking the concept to an intellectual extreme. But, because these techniques are so powerful, because the social pressures for women to be pleasing and to fit in are also so powerful, this approach to dressing is not an extreme in real life, in conversations between friends, between women and their mirrors. And i hate that anyone would think and feel about a person this way - that people should be measured and judged by how they contrast with some vitiated ideal. Doing this to yourself isn't any nicer than doing it to someone else. You're a person, too.

So how can we use these techniques, these magic tools of proportion and color and texture, without being caught in a horrible machine, stripping us of all that makes us beautiful and unique?

Remember What You Love

That's it - remember what you love and concentrate on that, first and foremost, while you dress. I love to wear flower prints and pins because i love flowers of all types: cherry and plum blossoms with petals scattered by a spring rain, huge clumps of fairy lanterns cascading down a meadowed hill, mimosa blossoms which start out perfectly symmetrical being mussed by a busy honeybee. My rugged boots and cargo pants recall my family's long history of wild and wooly exploits in the Californian countryside.  Combining these rugged pieces with feminine, womanly skirts and blouses reflects my obsession with finding the middle ground between extremes, a trend made that much more emphatic by my history with Buddhism.

I loved the way this look echoed a tree in bloom - dark, sturdy trunk (shoes and stockings); branches and twigs up higher (sakura knit top); flowers and leaves at the top and at the 'ends' of the branches (Pleione blouse). It was so fun to be showing the world a pattern-mixing fashion fiend, while inside i knew my arboreal secret.


Using style to tip your public to these inner parts of yourself, your personality and passions, can be incredibly creative and engaging - for you and for the people around you. What's more fun than spying a friend's love of gardening in her rain boots colored to match her trademark tulips, or asking a friend to tell you about the fly he tied and is wearing on his lapel? Happily this type of play with clothing is well tolerated in our society.

 But i am going to come out of the closet, right here and now, and confess to a taboo practice. I also dress to deliberately play up my favorite physical features.  I love the blue of my eyes, the curve of my brows and hair. I get a kick out of the straight and strong lines of my shoulders, the ways they play off the curves of my legs. I will tell you from experience that it is so much more fun and inspiring to dress to perfectly frame my favorite features than to hide the bits labelled "not up to snuff", worrying all day that someone will guess the horror underneath it all (gasp!).

I firmly believe that these attitudes come through in the final outfit. The thoughts and feeling with which you start your day will certainly color your mood throughout that day. Honestly, do you think Anna Piaggi worries about the size of her butt when she's dressing? It sure doesn't look like it - i dare say Ms. Piaggi has a lot more interesting things on her mind!

Which brings me to a final observation about the 'fix it' approach to dressing yourself. It's boring. You risk coming across as thinking that you're not good enough, you have nothing to really say, you don't find anything in the outside world all that exciting........You Have No Passion. What a sad and colorless place to live! The shame of it is that it's not even true.

All of us inhabit amazing and beautiful bodies, creative and unpredictable minds. I am surrounded by luminous complexions, lyrical coloring, hair with a complex life of it's own, startlingly unique proportions. You have gorgeous parts as well. What are they? How would you dress if your only goal was to show off that rambunctious hair, those golden-green sloe eyes, your delicate long boned fingers. Not if you suddenly had 'the perfect body'. No one knows what that may be, and even if you lived in one, your same brain and habits would get down to their project of formulating new flaws. Go to your closet and pick out the pieces that really spark your coloring, that get you glowing incandescently, that call to mind your favorite things to do.  What happens when your clothes tell you "Remember that time we spent in Venice, the glow of the setting sun on the buildings...."  "Cannot wait to get out in the garden later today...."  "heehee, my hair goes it's own way - just like my cousin's....."

These ways of dressing yourself are two extremes. Dressing strictly to hide or compensate "flaws" vs. dressing to celebrate your body, your life, your passions. The tricky thing is that dropping a curtsy towards 'figure flattery' can open the door for wilder exploration of your loves. But i find myself more and more on the side of celebration and passion, caring less and less for common 'shoulds'.

My question today - if you had to choose between the two extremes: Who would you want to strike up a friendship with? Who's head would you want to live in? Who do you want to be?