Great question, Sal! Really made me think.

With a few exceptions, I tend to stick to a neutral palette for my clothing, but within the neutral families, there's a range.

Ink -> Navy -> Denim -> Pale Blue
Black -> Charcoal -> Gray -> Dove -> White
Brown -> Tan -> Taupe -> Oatmeal -> Ivory

I feel like with this method, I get maximum mix-and-matchability and longterm wearability. I tend to tire quickly of colorful colors, so if I'm drawn to one, I'll usually add it in the form of an inexpensive scarf.

I have "color focused" on my black/white/gray/blue palette for the past two years and am starting to feel that I'd like to add additional colors. I have some items from before this color focusing stage that are in different colors, so I've grouped them together to see how I can best incorporate them into my wardrobe. I have small capsules in red/orange, green/olive, brown/beige/taupe, and pale blue. I'm still in the thinking stage as this is a recent idea.

I'm definitely on team spread the color love around!

Like Angie I have a high affinity for color mixing, so I don't need a lot of items in the same color to coordinate.

However, as my recent spreadsheet exercise showed I do need to be a little more deliberate about assembling complements so I'm not left with color orphans.

Shopping secondhand as I do (not exclusively, but to a relatively large extent) makes it hard to do a deliberate "deep dive" on any one color. I have to stay a little bit flexible. Like, my first choice this fall might be to build up my burgundy complement, but it might turn out that I find a lot of items in the perfect shade of plum instead.

I will say that although I like and include in my wardrobe a lot of colors, in many cases they are very specific shades. For me that's especially true with purples, pinks, and yellows.

This is a difficult question to answer. I'd say my practices fall in line with how Ginger, Brooklyn, and LaP have described theirs. I focus within colors that are flattering to me, that is, colors that are cool and somewhat muted. I am more strictly focused on certain palette for neutrals: black/charcoal, gray, white. I have my favored colors (berry hues, cool reds, and cool teals) that are strongly represented as solids, but with prints I branch out with colors that might not otherwise make their way into my wardrobe (yellows, oranges, warmer greens).

What a good question! I have a lot of colours in my wardrobe, both neutrals and non-neutrals. I like variety in colours and enjoy experimenting with colour mixing. My strategy is to build a rather large collection of accessories, such as scarves, gloves, glasses, costume jewelry and bags in many, many different colours, which makes it possible to create outfits around various colours and colour combinations. I usually stick to few outfit formulas and silhouettes and use a lot of colours within essentially the same outfit formulas.

Wow this thread exploded over night. I am off to work in 10 minutes so can't quite respond to everyone individually.

When I talked about colour focus - I guess I meant complements - probably the same actually I think. I have never really done this except with leather items - bag/shoes/belt. I do find having matching options here really helpful although I don't always choose to wear them together.

Because I wear a lot of neutrals and a lot of print I don't add many solid colour "colours" - I have a few of course, but probably less than 10 - of which a few are dresses, a few sweaters, a coat. I wear the colour (eg red leather jacket) with neutrals or maybe a print - rarely with another colour.

There seem to be a few approaches such as those mentioned below:
- Neutral only (Gryffin)
- Neutral with small number of defined colours (Sterling)
- Neutral and colours that you like/wear (Jenn)
- Lots of colours (Bijou)

Finding the colours that you like was also mentioned as a challenge - one I identify with. Coral/watermelon colours are one of my very favourite and most flattering - but not around much at the moment. I know green has been hard to find for several years - but is around this year. Currently there are yellows and purples (marigold, mustard, lemon, lilac, mauve etc) but this is the first time in a while these colours have been widely available in "modern/trendy"styles.

Several people also said they wore neutral in winter and colour in summer which is something I do as well. While there is no reason I can't wear coral in winter it is hard to find in winter pieces.

I do associate certain colours with certain forum members and admire that tight focus on colours that you love, make you happy and suit you.

I will re - read this thread later today and try and respond in better detail.

Hmm, interesting question! My wardrobe is neutral heavy, but I do like a pop of color every now and then. I don't buy my color indiscriminately but am pretty focused on one or two colors at a time. In the spring, I was in love with pink and bought myself some pink shoes and a pink scarf. I would have bought a pink bag if I had found one that I liked.

Right now I am craving yellow and just bought myself a pair of yellow sandals and a mustard skirt. I bought yellow nail polish too.

I feel like forest green might be calling my name for fall. We shall see!

Love this thread. Definitely color focused.
Gray ( light and dark) and navy / denim are my base colors for pants ( I have a couple of black pants that are held over because they are still good and serviceable).
For color—- tops are green ( from aqua to teal )
blue (baby to bright) and
purple( from lavender to berry/burgundy) and
white.
Prints and patterns courtesy of scarves, a couple of funky jackets and summer print dress.
Even though the palette is limited- there is enough in the spectrum to keep boredom away.
I absolutely love seeing color on others- I particularly love seeing people who know what colors they totally rock in their best picks even if I know on me those colors would look horrendous.

Hmm, I think my wardrobe is pretty evenly divided between neutral and color, but my palette is very well defined. I think my jacket rack in my closet really sums it up well:

Gorgeous jacket rack Janet!! Such a lovely and cohesive range of colours...really like your light neutral ones here. You have a great sense of colour and what suits you and matching them (in your photos as well as your clothing).

I saw in a thread that your turquoise one was not worn much - it might have been weather related (I rarely wore summer jackets last year - the evenings were too warm) but it is the outlier here. Of course it would work with denim and black and white brilliantly so probably not an issue.

So interesting!
I wear a lot of neutrals - black, grey (of all kinds), navy, denim and to a lesser degree white and cream. I have a couple of favourite colours - most shades of red, and all shades of deeper blue. I hardly wear patterns, other than stripes and spots (and then, mainly in neutrals).

Other than this, I tend to add perhaps one or two items of a more "on trend" colour every now and then. I tend to really enjoy wearing these, but don't crave them a lot, and am often satisfied with just one or maybe two a year. Last month I added a pale pink three quarter sleeve t-shirt with a rose gold dot. I love it! It's too casual for work, but fun for the weekends or work at home days. It works well with rose gold sneaks. I don't think I will add anything more to it, but I will thrash it for a season or two and enjoy it!

I think I fall into the more neutral-based in winter, more colour-based in summer group. The colours I have loved through my life have been fairly consistent since my 20s- mostly brights. But in winter I like a neutral base with accents. About 20 years ago the accent was mostly red, which has gradually changed to cobalt in the past 8-10 years. Olive is a favourite almost- neutral since the early 90s. Also with my changing hair colour from brunette to grey, I am slowly liking charcoal/pewter, and navy, as much as my previous black base. I think limiting the bright colour range a bit has helped my wardrobe choices to be more consistent. I still have many coloured earrings I can grab!

Almost all of my clothing is black, with a handful of plain white shirts and tees. But just in the past months I’ve been drawn to very pale pastels as an alternative to white - specifically lilac and cooler pinks. I’m starting to put together a bit of a capsule: an oxford shirt, a few tees, a pair of shoes, maybe some accessories. To be honest, I’m nervous about adding in color (I don’t have room to expand my wardrobe too much). But this focused approach seems more workable than 20 years ago when I’d haphazardly try to add bright & dark colors to my black wardrobe.

I do think knowing the types of colours that work for you is key when adding colour. It's taken a lot of trial and error for me to figure out the nuances of my preferences, and they do evolve...

In general I avoid colours that are too clear/bright (the colours that Angie rocks -- think poppy, chartreuse, cobalt). I will add very saturated colours if they are dark: navy, eggplant, black, burgundy, but I generally don't want saturated brights, though I make an exception for crimson and turquoise because they are happy colours for me and seem to integrate easily. I do like contrast and like to have a lot of true black and true white, and I like to temper black/white combos with earthy colours like rust or olive.

My current project is trying to figure out browns. A rich chocolate brown would be easy for me that to wear but I don't see many items in chocolate that interest me (yet). I'd like to find some lighter brown items, as an accent for black and navy, but I do not want the bright/orangey cognacs that have dominated for some time. I want slightly toffee/maple shades with a softer more muted appearance -- and there seem to be more of these shades coming out this fall.

Lucy - I agree - you can add a single piece in a different colour successfully if it works with neutrals or other colours. I am not particularly an oxblood/wine colour person but I have loved having a dress in that colour as quite a change.

Jenni - I do think you really suit colour - but agree charcoals and silvers are lovely with your hair. Red has not been super easy to get here lately - I really like red too but have not added much over the last few years.

Greyscale - I think adding a new colour carefully is a great idea. You do look spectacular in black but really nice to have a change available.

La Ped - chocolate would be great on you. Here there are more camels and cognacs than cool browns but I think they will start reappearing. I wore a LOT of chocolate from about 1998 through to 2005-ish. I recall a bootleg cord suit, tall boots, a dress, a sweater, sailor style pants, tanks, shorts etc....I loved it at the time with pale turquoise/aqua and I still think this is a good combo. I like the way Jenn and yourself mix neutrals and colour - you both have a terrific eye for balance.

I "spread the colour love around." However, I only use cool (not warm) colours, as they harmonize with my cool colouring.