I vote wear colours that make you happy, even when they aren’t suited to your complexion. There are ways to manipulate colour integration to make them more flattering. Here are four styling strategies that do just that. 

1. Wear the Colour As An Accent

Decreasing the surface area of the colour is a great place to start. For example, if cool-toned colours look best with your complexion, but you fancy the idea of wearing sour brights like coral and citron: wear them away from your face in the form of footwear, a bag, a belt, or as an accent in a patterned scarf or patterned clothing item. 

2. Wear the Colour on the Bottom

Wear the colour on the bottom half of your body so that it’s away from your face. Think skirts, trousers, shorts, belts, footwear and socks. 

3. Wear the Colour With Your Best Colours 

Remember that you should not see a colour in isolation because it will look different depending on the colours around it. This means that wearing a so-called “bad colour” alongside one of your so-called “best colours” might make it a whole lot more flattering against your complexion. For example, I love blush pink, but it tends to wash me out unless I wear it alongside a neutral — like white or black. It also springs to life when I wear it with some of my best colours, like citron or tomato red. 

4. Adjust Your Make-Up

This is my least favourite option, but it can be effective. You can use make-up to adjust your complexion in the direction that is more suited to the colour you want to wear. Or use contrast to draw attention away from your complexion and towards your facial features. A stronger brow line, richer mascara, darker lipstick, bronzer and blush can work wonders. 

Of course, you can simply wear the colours that you know look good and leave it at that. Or you can disregard these tips and challenge the accepted norms around combining colours and complementing your complexion. Just like you can wear every trend, you can also wear every colour. It’s a matter of finding the way of doing so that works best for you.

Part of my style evolution in 2015 involved reintroducing a retro element to my style, and I’m continuing this into 2016 with gusto. The adjectives I’ve chosen to describe my ideal style are Modern, Crisp, Simple, Soft and Dressy. I’m excited to see where these style parameters take me. The new year is brimming with fresh possibilities. 

It’s been sunny but freezing in Seattle over the last few weeks and there’s ice underfoot. This outfit is not warm enough to wear outdoors in this weather, but it was fine to have dinner out with friends over the weekend because I moved from a heated house, into a heated car and directly into a heated restaurant. I’m also wearing a Heattech thermal tee under my turtleneck, which does an amazing job of retaining body heat.

I’ve gone back and forth on adding a cape to my outerwear capsule because they’re not all that practical for our climate. Also, they can easily overwhelm my slight frame and narrow shoulders. On the other hand, I love their fun, glam integrity. Plus, a cape works well over chunky knitwear that’s too bulky to wear under a fitted coat.

So I tried on a bunch of capes at Zara on our annual holiday shopping day with dear friend Bridget, her husband Derek, and my in-house fashion stylist Greg. They unanimously voted that the houndstooth cape was best and “Sherlock Holmes Fab”. They also assured me that it was just flattering enough despite the longer length and roomy silhouette. Twirling around Zara in the cape, I could not ignore how happy the item made me feel. So the retro darling followed me home and found itself under our Christmas tree. 

The fluid black turtleneck — a wardrobe essential for my style — provides an effective canvas for the cape because it’s basic and neutral. The high neckline of the pullover complements the removable black faux fur collar. I have several tops that can be worn with the cape, but a simple neutral with a high neckline is best.

I’m wearing the cape here with jeans, but it works just as well over a pencil skirt, pair of trousers, or dress. It’s great that it works both open and closed. And that it can be comfortably worn as an indoor topper when I’m shopping with a client at the mall. 

I’m tired of bottlenecking in the laundry with dark blue jeans, so I added another pair to my capsule. I chose Gap’s Girlfriend Jeans in a dark wash but manipulated the fit to create a trendier silhouette — one that is shorter and tighter than on the model. I sized down two sizes and purchased a petite to get an extra cropped length for my regular height. I also left the hems unrolled because that touch looks fresh to my eye. Sizing down and wearing a petite also lowered the rise, which is a nice way of changing things up from the high rises I’ve been wearing for a while. I adore these jeans and have worn them four times in the first week. They provide the trendy support act I needed to complement the retro cape. 

High-shaft booties effectively close the gap, which offsets the shorter length of the jeans. Nude knee-highs provide ample insulation for indoors. A belt in the same colour as the booties pulls together the look. A new gold clutch from J.Crew — a Christmas gift from a dear friend — provides a little sparkle. The sunnies add an extra retro touch to the outfit and worked well for the sunny photo shoot. Of course, I wore my green specs out to dinner that night, along with a gold watch and wedding ring. 

• 1 RB2180 49mm — $140.00
• 2 Merino turtleneck sweater
• 3 1969 clean dark girlfriend jeans
• 4 Houndstooth Cape
• 5 Leather envelope clutch in crackled gold foil — $98.00
• 6 'The Slim' Bracelet Watch, 36mm — $250.00
• 7 'Mary' Chelsea Boot (Women) — $140.00
• 8 Classic leather belt — $34.50

Zappos

Ray-Ban RB2180 49mm

$140.00

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1

19

Zara

Houndstooth Cape

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4

17

Gap

Merino turtleneck sweater

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2

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Gap

1969 clean dark girlfriend jeans

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3

31

J.Crew

Leather envelope clutch in crackled gold foil

$98.00

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14

Nordstrom

MARC BY MARC JACOBS 'The Slim' Bracelet Watch, 36mm

$250.00 $149.97

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9

J.Crew

Classic leather belt

$34.50 $24.99

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Nordstrom

Topshop 'Mary' Chelsea Boot (Women)

$140.00 $70.00

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The new cape won’t get lots of wear, but that’s okay because it’s unrealistic to expect all wardrobe items to be workhorses. But the style has a high-longevity factor because retro items transcend the trends. I’ll be keeping the piece for a while and wearing it when I feel like a little glam detective drama.

I touched on how to add a new colour in a recent post about building the palette of your wardrobe, but here I’m going to elaborate in more detail. When adding an item in a new-to-you colour, it’s important to think about how you’ll wear it in outfits. 

It’s very helpful to think about your wardrobe in terms of capsules. This does NOT mean that every top and topper has to match every bottom. Not at all. Thinking in capsules merely means thinking about how your wardrobe items relate to each other so that you can create complete outfits that make you feel fab. This prevents the random purchase of items that don’t go together or don’t work for your lifestyle.

I will illustrate the four-step process with a blush jacket that we added to a client’s business casual wardrobe last season. The current palette in her wardrobe was mostly dark neutrals, earth tones, and some jewel tones. Denim was not part of the capsule because of the business casual dress code. 

Here’s the easy four-step process.

1. Scan the Contents of Your Wardrobe

My client fell in love with the blush jacket when we were refreshing her style for Spring. She really wanted to make it work because it was a wild card and a way to evolve her style. She could immediately match the jacket with a column of black or navy because she already had those neutrals in her closet. But combining the pastel with dark neutrals didn’t look sufficiently crisp to her eye, and there was room for improvement. This meant that we had to purchase more pieces to work with the blush jacket.

2. Purchase the Support Act

The absence of LIGHT neutrals in my client’s wardrobe was a glaring hole because they work particularly well with pastels like blush. So we set out to purchase a foundation of two pairs of white trousers, a white skirt and a few white tops. We also threw in a pair of taupe trousers. We finished off the outfits with taupe and gold footwear, and an off-white handbag. 

3. Build Onto the Capsule 

Now that my client had several light outfits to wear with the new blush jacket, we set out to add a few more blush items to this capsule to create even more outfits. We added a blouse in a blush, black and white pattern, a few blush pullovers, a blush tweed skirt, and a blush and taupe patterned scarf. 

4. Lay a Foundation for the Next New Colour

The purchase of the light neutral support act for the blush jacket was quite a substantial investment of time, effort and money for the addition of one new colour to my client’s wardrobe. But it’s the gift that keeps on giving because it paved the way for a much easier and cost-effective addition of the next new colours my client added to her wardrobe, which were chartreuse and light blue. Pastels and brights can be worn with black and navy, but look fresher and more Summery when combined with light neutrals in warm weather. 

Adding a new colour into your wardrobe is easier, less expensive, and becomes more of an intuitive process when: 1) you have an assortment of light, mid-tone and dark neutrals in your wardrobe already, and 2) when your affinity for colour mixing is relatively high. If my client had light neutrals in her wardrobe to start off with, she wouldn’t have needed to purchase the support act. She would have moved straight to building onto the capsule with more patterns and solids. And if her affinity for mixing colours was higher, she would be combining the next new colour — chartreuse — with the blush and white.

If you are looking for a style resolution for 2016, here are ten to consider on this New Year’s Day. 

1. Don’t “compare and despair”. Compete with the best version of your current self, and no one else. 
2. Listen to how you FEEL in an outfit. The more you are in tune with your preferences, needs and emotions, the easier it is to sport a style that is effortless, authentic and makes you feel fabulous. Don’t take the emotion out of your style.
3. Keep poison eye to a minimum because there’s a version of every trend for everyone. 
4. Dress the body you have right now.
5. Set the stylish standard and don’t let anyone make you feel bad for dressing in the ways that make you happy. 
6. Celebrate your body because it’s an incredible gift that deserves daily care and praise at any size and age. 
7. Appreciate all the different ways we can be beautiful because life would be awfully dull if we all looked the same. 
8. Judge the outfit, but not the person wearing it. 
9. There’s no such thing as “trying too hard” in fashion and style. Trying is a good thing, and having fun along the way is the best part of all.
10. Be patient and positive with your style and relax into your style journey. Pat yourself on the back every time you get it right. 
11. Have fun with fashion. Don’t take it too seriously. Experiment with new things. Be surprised at what works, and learn from what doesn’t. Laugh a lot.