Colour. Clash or splash?

Colour.  (Or for our friends across the pond - Color).  Such a minefield of potential still mistakes, but also a goldmine for simple style.  It should be so simple - selecting something to suit your own colouring - yet it is so frequently done wrongly!  

Lesson 1:  The Colour Wheel

The Colour Wheel is something that if you've never seem before can be quite difficult to explain, so  I've borrowed an image from the nice course on colour at www.realcolorwheel.com to help illustrate this bit!

Binary Opposite (flashing!) colours -  "Binary opposites" are opposed to each other on the wheel.  For instance bright yellow and dark blue - rich orange and light blue.  These colours are serious impact colours, and will "flash" when placed next to each other in a very eye-catching way.  Used to great effect in lots of fashionable looks.

Tonal colours - these are focused around a single segment (say number 9) and all the light and dark versions of this colour.  You can create a look based around all the colours in the segment - e.g. red, dark red and mahogany - to give a strong look.

Complementary colours - colours which work well together are with in the same small region of segments, but with a small separation (e.g. pink 14 and blue 19 would look good together).  Coordinating pieces within colour regions is a simple and safe way to create and interesting look, but should be done in moderation, as you will risk the dreaded clashing colours!  Right next to each other (e.g. 1 yellow and 36 green) works but won't make as much of an impact as a few shades away.

Clashing colours - so what is a "clashing" colour?  Try 36 green and 13 pink.  Or 13 pink and 25 blue.  Clashing colours are roughly separated by thirds on the wheel, although personal preference is of course allowed in judging combinations of colours!  They're good for catching the eye of onlookers... although watch out you don't overdo it.  Clashing are bold statements, if you're trying to dress to impress then give it a go.  Yes blondes... wearing scarlet is exactly this!  Clashing is usually around a quarter of a circle each way from the base colour.

So - the big question - what does this all mean to me?  Well, it's not just your clothes that rock the colour wheel - it's you hair, eye and skin colour too.  You're looking to wear colours which match, oppose or are complementary to your own colouring.  There's a good reason why pale, ginger-haired girls look great with bright green clothing, why blondes really suit bright blues and why tanned or dark-skinned brunettes look great in yellow.

Colour is about experimentation, but start simple - work the binary opposites for a classic and timeless look.  Go seasonal with you complementary colours where you can - and rock the tonal look by closely matching shades to your hair colour!  Remember - finding colours that suit your colouring as well as the rest of your outfit is all about creating your real style.

It's all "style" to me...

Fashion has very much been an eventful journey since 1997 and the tender age of 13. Up until that point I was utterly clueless. If I wasn't in sports gear (sports bras and popper trousers... oh yes they did have their day once...), it was some double-denim monstrosity with a rave-inspired crop top or a brightly-coloured 90s-esque stretchy legging-t-shirt-legwarmers combo.  I think the most stylish picture of myself from my childhood is as an angel in my school play, aged 6 (left).  I was your typical maths nerd, while not unattractive I was much more interested in homework and team sports against boys than I was in working out what to wear. My hair was a mess of wavy curls and I'd never wear make-up as I didn't know how.

We didn't have much money at home, and the fact my growing had slowed down enough for mum to let me get some real trousers (leggings are much more practical if you gain many inches a year apparently) was a real milestone for me at the age of 12. The only problem I found? I was 5'10" (176cm) tall with lanky legs and huge feet! So mum began making my clothes, which meant very a baggy trouser style (see pic right from 1997...)... with a stretch waist as it was quicker to sew. Would you believe they still fit me now??

So the turning point in this rather terrifying fashion hell?? Another rather nerdy girl from school came round my house... and we sat chatting in my room. I'm not sure of the exact details of how... I may have mentioned having never read a girl's magazine... ever... but she had me frogmarched to the cornershop to get a pile of girlie magazines faster than I could blink. I was talked through the different sections, given a frank run-down on my rather shameful wardrobe, and swiftly booked on a shopping trip to get a selection of multi-coloured nail polishes so I could paint each toe a different colour (this was a huge trend at the time apparently!).

And so it began. I could never afford any beautiful clothes, but mum was getting better at making things for me, and my aunt lived in Paris so we could get amazing fabrics from round Montmartre. I first latched onto the punk-skater-chic (!) as my identity as my brother rode semi-professional BMX and I was spending lots of time down the trails in the woods, and needed practical clothes that didn't make people smirk like the old ones used to. I'd kind of gotten used to people laughing at me about my simple and stretchy clothes at school, so it was quite weird finally feeling like I could belong. The clothing was an extension of my personality - and finally I was able to save enough to get clothes that I wanted on occassion.

I would ask every Christmas and birthday from then on for shopping vouchers, excitedly planning how to spend them and what each item would say about me. The frustrations still of being tall would mean I had a growing collection of maxi-skirts of all varieties, and by the time I went to college I didn't own anything but skirts and a single paid of enormously baggy jeans!

The final revelation in the fashion quest was university. A big far student loan living allowance, that meant complete and utter independence for shopping. This, coupled with going to Imperial (which is about a 40 minute WALK to Oxford Street) and the fact the shops there actually did TALL clothes sealed my fate. Clothes became my release, my artist expression, my vocalisation of myself. A bit like a butterfly I moved on from the punk-skater-goth-rather-chic and began to understand real clothes a bit more. Still high street but definitely a step up - people actually would comment on my clothes on a daily basis!

After university the world of work finally gave me the opportunity to understand trends, seasons, the different collections... and most importantly how to buy timeless clothes so that updating for new seasons is really replacing clothes which desperately need replacing! Being able to understand what everyone will want to wear in a few months means you can appear to be a trend-setter, with very little effort on your part.

Now days fashion is a huge part of who I am. I have friends who love fashion too... and we can discuss on a level that naive me would have just looked bemused at. Fashion is life, but fashion is one of the "black arts" still to most of the population. The advent of excellent magazines targeting using high street buys to recreate designer looks... and of course Gok's impact on the nation have helped, but the techniques and understanding of how to dress to suit your own shape, style and colour is something that seems a little to abstract for most people.

So here is my mission... to the science behind style, understand colours, shapes, textures and techniques for bringing them all together. To explain simply the reasons why some things work and some things will never do so.

Follow me if you are interested... and feed back your thoughts!