What colour suits me - Which Neutral shades should I wear? (2024)

January 24, 2017/ Last updated : January 24, 2017Thomasin NewtonGeneral

One of the comments I often hearwhen I see clients is that they always wear the same colour, typically black or grey, and are sick of always wearing the same thing and want to know what colour suits me? They are scared of wearing bright colours or indeed any colour as they don’t know what suits them nor what will work for them. These comments bring up an interesting point namely that we like wearing neutrals – also knownas safe or dark colours. The trick is making sure that youare wearing the correct neutrals based on your natural colouring. No one should wear every neutral shade… So the question is –what is a neutral colour?

Agood way to describe neutrals is that they are those colours which mix and match more readily with other colours in your palette. Co-coordinating your wardrobe is easier and more successful if you chose neutral colours for the important‘building block’ items such as suits, coats, jackets, trousers, skirts, shoes and boots.

Interest and colour is best added with accessories such as jewellery, scarves, bags and tops. Typically we have more of these items than we do of the neutral items i.e. 2-3 coats against 15-20 tops, scarves or pieces of jewellery.

As previously stated no one can wear every neutral. What neutrals we should wear depend on what our natural colouring is like. Dark pigmentation in hair, skin and/or eyes paired with cool skin (bluey/pink) overall bright or high contrast look worksbest in black, dark navy,charcoal grey, burgundy, taupe andmid grey. Wearing these neutrals on their own as a monotone look or paired with bright accent colours can look amazing. It’s just a question of how you feel on any given day. There is no wrong or right way to pair colours together once you have a good understanding of your general palette of colours.

If you have light pigmentation levels in hair, skin and/or eyes paired with cool skin and an overall soft or low contrast look then you neutral shades will begreyed navy, soft grey, burgundy and taupe.

Darkish pigmentation levels in hair, skin and/or eyes with warmer (more yellowy skin) but still an softer or low contrast look should wear neutral shades of camel, chocolate brown, soft brown, bronze, khaki and marine navy.

Warm skin tone paired with a bright overall look works best withneutral shades of tan, golden brown, light camel and beige and french navy.

A couple of important points to bear in mind withneutrals are that navy appears in all palettes albeit in slightly differing versions of it. My advice to clients would be when in doubt of what colour to get or what colour suits you then go for navy as it suits everyone, it always looks chic and as it’s a dark colour is slimming.

Finally, once you know what neutrals andgeneral colour palette suits you it’s easy to dress well, look good and feel great.

For more information on finding out what palette suits you email or call me to book an appointment.Why not have a read of my colour analysis page to seehow having a colour analysis could help you with shopping and dressing well.

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