Fantastical Beauty and Use of Personal Coloring in Typing

There are ways to make every personal coloring work with every type (as you see in the guides), but the prototypical image of each of the 9 types is friendlier to some personal coloring than others. The ease of your own best colors meshing with the dominant image of a type might be a useful tertiary consideration for some (particularly for those not looking to do much personalization work).

The dominant color schemes are as follows:

Valkyrie: Black and Darks, Neutrals

Fae: Pastels and Icies, Purple

Magic Queen: Black+White and Cool Brights, Red

Maenads: White and Warm Brights, Orange

Nymph: Softs and Warm Browns and Greens

Angel: White and Pastels, Pink, Blue

Dragon Princess: Brights and Gold, Metals

Mermaid: Cool Blues, Greens, Pinks

Seer: Muted Warms, Red, Grey, Green

What do I do if my type doesn't easily lend itself to the dominant color scheme of my type? E.G. if I'm an Angel who looks best in dark colors and purple especially, or I'm a Valkyrie but prefer wearing my lightest colors and few neutrals.

1. Schedule a style analysis with me so I can create a unique vision for you that includes a personalized moniker and uses your best colors in conjunction with the particulars of your type.

2. Explore the guide. Each guide shows sample palettes and color combinations for Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter coloring.

3. Explore Leanings and Subtypes as a way of better harmonizing a type and coloring together.

4. If you're not interested in personalization/the guides/custom analysis, and the dominant mood of your type and your coloring are opposites, see if another type within your quadrant would work better for you.

How should I use color as a tertiary consideration in typing myself?

Colors (and bust size, stature, personality, etc) are just one tiny tertiary consideration among many for when you are really on the fence between two types. If you are truly on the fence, how close your preferred coloring is to the color scheme of a type might be one of the small factors worth considering as you try to make the call.

On Fitting Into a Color Season or Style Type

Many of my clients love the 12 seasons approach or have custom seasonal palettes already and I am happy to work with whatever color approach they are enjoying, while using it in a way that meshes with Fantastical Beauty. When a client comes to me without a palette in mind, I create a custom color space for them (If you are looking for someone to situate you within a 12 seasons approach, Rachel Nachmias of Best Dressed is SciART trained, with an exquisite eye, and I heartily recommend her). The following is entirely my own opinion and reflective only of the Fantastical Beauty system.

All systems approaches to style and color are going to be springboards for finding your absolute best styles and colors. These aren't often endpoints, but rather best taken as beginnings. Might some people fit perfectly into the stereotype of a season or archetype? Absolutely, but assume they are a rarity. Most people need to take the box that fits best and begin hammering at it until it truly fits. Don't be afraid to remove sections while expanding others.

I see people taking their palette (from a variety of systems) or style type and struggling with it when the totality of it doesn't fit perfectly. This incredible frustration inevitably leads to doubt. Am I really this season/type if x, y, and z aren't working for me? If I need clothing to fit at the waist, surely I can't be Dramatic Linear... If I can't wear hot pink lipstick, I must not be a 12 seasons Bright Spring... 

Please stop flailing. I know from experience that it's a terrible feeling to experience as the temporary certainty of a new type/season inevitably flees. If everything in you is saying that a designation is wrong, and you've tried your best with it, at some point you should free yourself of it- calmly. It wreaks havoc to frantically bounce from box to box. It's a systems approach, so be thoroughly systematic in your exploration. Try personalizing, rather than just the stereotype, to see if you could have a home there, before moving on.

Each season has its version of yellow. What the palette doesn't tell you, is if yellow is flattering on you. It will show you your best version of black and white, but black and white might not hold a candle to Winter midnight blue and pale silver on you. You won't wear all of the colors equally well. This is true of style types as well. There are different silhouette, neckline, and detail recommendations within each type and it's up to you to sort through your very best (alone, with a friend, or with a stylist). 

Below are six mini palettes created from the larger palette above- the idea being that one mini might really highlight the person while others could feel lackluster. The first group of four is a stereotype that not every Dark/Deep Winter will wear superbly. It doesn't make you less of a Dark/Deep Winter to wear the very last color grouping best. It doesn't make you a Summer, because the saturation/chroma is firmly Winter, even without emphasizing black, white, and cranberry. Particularly if your coloring is atypical, one of the non-stereotypical mini palettes can create a better overall look, even if your skin can technically handle black, white, and cranberry fine.  

6 sample approaches to Dark winter, beginning with the stereotype top left, which will only truly flatter some DWs.

Being thorough in your approach means personalizing the box. Fantastical Beauty has multiple ways of doing this (leanings, subtypes, starting palettes) that are built in. Base 5 and seasonal coloring don't have personalization built in, but you should be doing it anyway. If you're struggling to personalize, consider working with a stylist. What I've said above for Dark/Deep Winter holds true for all of the other seasons in the 12 season approach. It holds true for the 16 seasons system and the 4 seasons approaches. It holds true for whatever color and style systems you are using to help define your own best look. You are handed a box. Tinker with it until it becomes a heart, a star, a diamond, or whatever shape best fits you.

How to Wear Unflattering Colors Successfully

I think we've all been seduced by a color that looks bad on us before, and I know all too well that we all have something black in our closet, when it's unflattering on more people than not (and for people to do wear it, they often choose black when they'd be better served by choosing a color). Rather than pretend like we're only ever going to choose our best colors, I've come up with a few guidelines for wearing violation colors and neutrals to help it look less bad. 

My first recommendation is that you choose a flattering version of whatever color you're lusting after. Wild about hot pink right now but look best in warm muted colors? Try rocking your peachy-pink and see if that takes care of the lusting. Wanting to wear black but your bests are lights? Go for your deepest grey or taupe. If that still fails you, try the following:

Hot Pink and Ivory by inaglassforest featuring skechers shoes

Unflattering Colors

1. Do your best to keep it away from your face.
2. Keep it small, preferably a really small block. How about a ring? How about lining for a jacket so that there are only small and occasional peeks of the color?
3. Integrate it in a print that also contains colors that flatter you, still preferably away from your face.
4. Pair it with your best neutral. If you can pair the violation color successfully with a color that is flattering to you, so much the better, but if your violation color is truly far off from your best, you will probably have to focus on your best neutral. (For the illustrative image, imagine the person who is looking to wear hot pink is an autumn base in their personal coloring)

 

Unflattering Neutrals

Black and Light Green / Mint by inaglassforest featuring French Connection

I find that unflattering neutrals are more forgiving than unflattering colors, but don't think that gives you more leeway- I'd generally rather see an unflattering color than head-to-toe solid neutrals on someone, because at least they're trying to be visually interesting (sorry if that felt like a diss... you know I hate *yawn* looks!). 

1. Do your best to keep it away from your face
2. If you have to have it near your face, buffer it by having a super flattering color near your face, and in a large block if possible.

I tried to pick a harder example in choosing black near the face for a person whose best colors are light. I echoed a small amount of black in the show to help integrate it- it's a good idea to avoid a floating block of color/neutral when it's a violation color/neutral.

Light Spring Seer

The Seer Archetype finds it's color scheme playing to deep, smoky, rich, tapestry colors, so what happens when your personal coloring is the light end of Spring? Even more magic, that's what. Unexpected coloring leads to a really unique end look, but it does require extra care to get us there in a way that stays true to the mood of the archetype.

There are always multiple directions we can go, and it's only through a full archetype analysis that the best path for the individual becomes clear. For this post, not having a specific person and all of their questionnaire answers in mind, we will look at one potential path.

One of the subtypes that leaps to mind is Lady Luck. She has greens and reds, essential to Seers, but is usually portrayed with somewhat brighter versions of these. A strawberry blonde with a kelly green dress is quite springy. It doesn't take much to shift this into the range of a light Spring green. Where red would be used, you have a strawberry pink or a coral to choose from, and these would pair really nicely with your browns and taupes. Your smoke comes from your darkest greys and taupes. Stick with the recs in the Seer guide, tailoring the colors to your own, and the resulting look will still look Seer perfect. 

Light Spring can be plenty Seer smoky, because personal coloring is relative. What might not even register on someone else, gives a deep and rich feeling to your look. Is it different from the deep/rich of an Autumn Seer? Absolutely. No more and no less true to Seer than your own look. Diversity is fantastic.

spring seer by inaglassforest featuring a wrap dress

10 Item Capsule Wardrobe

10 item capsules are a way of structuring a capsule wardrobe that limits your core clothing items to ten. 

What is counted in the ten?
tops, bottoms, onesies (dresses, jumpsuits)

What isn't counted in the ten?
undergarments, outerwear, athletic wear, shoes, accessories, everything else

Your 10 items could be:
10 onesies
6 tops, 4 bottoms
6 tops, 2 bottoms, 2 onesies
etc

It's a great way to begin experimenting with minimal wardrobes while still ensuring you have enough variety in what you're wearing. The absolute best way to get good at something, is to slog your way through experimenting and making mistakes. If we learn from our failures, our failures will lead to success.

jm10 by inaglassforest featuring strappy sandals

Here is a Base 10 capsule I put together for an Autumn Seer in her early 20s. 6 tops, 3 bottoms, and 1 dress. I included a few accessory possibilities to complete the picture.

If you'd like help putting together a Base 10 wardrobe, visit the shop: style: additional services. 

If you put a 10 item capsule together, I'd love to see it in the comments!