Respecting My Color Palette: Finding Out What Colors Work Best for Me

story by ANGELINA PEREZ background by COLETTE BARRON layout by JOCELYN VISNOV art by WADE WIEDENMANN

Iused to think there wasn’t a color that fit me better than black. Its darkness and tendency to flatter often alleviated my insecurities and kept me in a clothing comfort zone I wasn’t fully aware of until recently. Soon I realized that the darker the color, the more likely I was to buy and wear it over and over again. I always knew there was psychological reasoning behind these choices, but I never stopped to consider there could be a scientific one as well.

A popular TikTok trend shows stylists attempting to see what colors fit best for you through filters. My mostly black wardrobe inspired me to give this trend a try.

Marcia Crivorot, a personal stylist who works in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey specializes in helping people feel beautiful in the clothing items they buy and guiding them in the right direction in terms of color and style. I went to Crivorot to discuss the trend and get “color matched” so I could see how I can incorporate more colors into my closet.

“No, TikTok will not do your color analysis for you.” Crivorot said. “I’ve been getting lots of inquiries about color analysis from people discovering it on TikTok, and I’m going to tell you that most of the personal stylists there are not trained in color theory.”

Color theory was formed by an artist from the 19th century called Johannes Itten. While teaching an art class at the Staatliches Bauhaus, he noticed students gravitate to specific colors that had something in common with their complexion. From this, another artist, Robert Dorr, could tell just by the color of an actress’s clothes how well her skin looked against them. He formed the beginnings of the four seasons — winter, spring, summer and fall — analysis.

“We don’t work with the four seasons anymore.” Crivorot explained. “We now work with 12, and each has three subcategories. When we talk about seasons you need to imagine the typical landscape of the season.”

Crivorot described how each season and the wide range of colors each season includes — for example, summer. Summer includes the bright tones you might see in a sunset, the whites and creams found in the sand and the array of blue-green hues in the ocean.

After explaining the history behind the color analysis, I finally got to get color-tested myself. By wrapping my hair in a cap with just my natural roots sticking out, she instantly verified the intensity of my hair and how it contrasts with my eyebrows and eyes. Beside me was an array of colors ranging from the lightest to the darkest of each color imaginable.

“We are going to see the intensity of the colors and test them on your skin. A color can be very muted, very calm, and a color can also be a bright neon. There are also those in between. So not everything is in the beginning or in the end,” Crivorot said as she brought the first piece of fabric below my chin.

She silently brought shades of purples, reds and oranges, moving back and forth between the brightest to the darkest of each.

“We will be looking at value, intensity and temperature. Look at your face. What happens when I do this?” Crivorot asked as she held up a light green fabric, which made my skin appear more yellow.

She then moved to the darker side, stopping in the middle first. This made my skin look pink-ish. Finally, she found that the darkest green she had complimented my skin the best. This, Crivorot found, is because my color palette is deep winter.

I thought she was lying at first. How could my skin change with color? Of course, it wasn’t until I stared harder than I ever have in the mirror that I could see the color change she had been telling me about our whole session. By putting more of the deep winter colors up to my skin, I found what colors can work best for me and make me truly shine.

“It means your colors are with a dip, but more towards the dark and neutrals. When discussing vibrance, you work towards the vibrance but not super vibrant,” Crivorot told me. “You have these yellow which is a citric not mustard, not yolk. Citric is the best yellow for you because it’s a little bit cooler. You have purples from lilac to vibrant and dark purple. You have greens, you have navy blue, you have purples, pinks, reds, and yellows.” in-person color matching is the best choice to find the colors that best fit a person’s ward robe. To book an appointment with her, go to marciacrivorot.com.

For makeup, she recommended avoiding orange or peachy and sticking with a lovely coral aiming towards the redder side of it. For jewelry, she reassured me that I could go from the darkest to the lightest metal as long as there was vibrance. The brighter the shines, the better against my skin.

By sticking to the stubborn idea of darker clothes without the possibility of a pop of color, I would’ve missed out on a whole range of clothes I love but have always been scared to wear. Because of this experiment, I know that citric yellow, all shades of purple and navy blue are all colors I should embrace.