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.

Mix & Match Wardrobes are Overrated

Separates, separates everywhere! Mix-n-match separates! Believe me, I understand why they are everywhere- they are loved because we currently live in a culture of hyper casual dress, and they are lauded as providing more wardrobe options as they are mixed and matched (which adds even more emphasis to casual appearance). I need to tell you, there is a dark side to separates. I'm especially lookin' at you sister capsule bloggers.

Typical Capsule Wardrobe by inaglassforest featuring long sleeve tops

Tell me that the above set I created doesn't look painfully familiar. Why are so many wardrobes so horribly lacking in personality?

Separates are overrated because:

1. Casual is not the epitome of progress. It has a use and a place, but the way we present ourselves is a huge communication tool, and I like to think there is more to be visually communicated than "I'm on break from marathon Netflix in bed". 

2. When your goal is to maximize mix-match-ability, you will be forced to choose fairly plain items and rely almost entirely on accessories for visual personality. This isn't bad, but I think you could do better.

3. It doesn't flatter many people to create the line breaks that this separates approach takes, and it takes more effort to blend the line and complete a cohesive look than if you had chosen a smashing dress or suit. There are casual dresses and suits that would launch you so far from Netflix in bed. 

4. Option overload. Sure, you have a closet full of separates, but do you actually wear and pair them all? Do you enjoy it? Wouldn't it be easier to have a handful of complete looks just ready for you to grab and go, knowing it's already fabulous?

5. While the separates approach doesn't look awful on very many people, it also isn't enhancing anyone, due to the profound lack of flavor. Solids in neutrals (white, grey, navy, brown, cream, blue denim/chambray) are really really great. As filler. They are what you use when the rest of the outfit is loud and has already made the statement of YOU. Or you wear solids in neutrals as a statement themselves- modern/minimal, but in this case, there is a large burden placed on the style of the garment(s) to make a statement. A white button-up and a black skirt aren't going to do it. A white button up with sheer panels and bell sleeves, and a black midi skirt with fabric knots/twists and an asymmetric hem might do it- for a subdued look.

I get wanting wardrobe to be easy and to be comfortable. I even get wanting to blend into the crowd in a way that is aesthetically pleasing without calling attention to yourself. But you're reading my blog, and I want more for you. We can do easy and comfortable (not pajama comfortable, but easy walking comfortable), but we have to do it in a way that really sees you, and then chooses to enhance what it sees. Death to mix and match wardrobes.

Capsule Wardrobe with Personality by inaglassforest featuring ankle strap shoes

This capsule wardrobe was put together quickly, and without anyone in particular in mind, so it isn't as cohesive as it could be, but if you ask me any day of the week which wardrobe I'd want, or which I'd want to see on someone, I will hands down always choose this second capsule.

The first/typical capsule has 240 possible combinations, each as dull as the last. It's an impressive number from 15 pieces. With the personality capsule, 14 pieces makes 80 possible combinations. If you added another pant of some kind, you could have 15 pieces and 128 possible combinations- still only half that of the first, but how many do you need? How many combinations will you wear? What makes you feel expressed and joyful to wear? What's easier to look great in?

Thank-you for indulging my agitation. I truly understand the appeal of neutral-heavy, mix & match, separates, and I will continue to help you wrangle them and make them work as you wish. Just know that there is another way of doing things, and it could be even better.