Interesting. I found I had too much black and gray in my wardrobe and that it needed a bit of color to make it function. I am slowly trying to purge the solid black in favor of charcoal and am finding that grays can fight due to varying undertones. Plus, a couple of black purchases turned out to be off-black in not a good way (icky brownish), so that's a great disincentive. I am trying to be thoughtful about those colors I do add so that they play well with each other.

Your colors are my colors too, with the addition of some other blues. I have not gone to that radical step as I still have a few odd red or other colors, but I am inexorably banishing brown (but not khaki or olive, I am not so firm minded).

IK, thanks for making this so clear! I've been struggling with color and you've described a way forward. This will help identify wardrobe holes too, when I strip away all the distractions.

Room for another on board this ship?

It's funny... I joined the forum determined to learn how to wear more colour, having stuck myself in drabville for a few years. And I did get pretty brave and mad there for a bit...

But now I find I have several tops that work with one skirt and not another where a neutral would have swung both ways... or if I had chosen ONE skirt and ensured all tops matched that, it would be simpler.

Lesson learnt: Don't wear drab-for-me neutrals (most beiges and browns) but find your best few, plus best FEW colours. Just because I can find a way to wear most colours now does not mean working them ALL in results in the most effective wardrobe for me!

I know you haven't asked for opinions in your OP. So I am going to stick to my personal view.

I get bored seeing the same things/color/routine. So I don't even invest in expensive stuff unless I know I am going to love it for years to come. So sticking to a color palette might be just impossible for me! BUT who knows ...... I might be eating my words tomorrow

I love my neutrals especially black or black and white.
I tend to have a little emerald green added in winter and coral/peach in summer and this works wonderfully for me. I also have some animal prints that I looooove to mix it up with.
Black and cobalt for work functions and that's me done.
I'm occasionally tempted to try on beautiful colour combinations but they never feel right so I don't buy them.

I think this makes things a lot easier and this is a great idea!

I do this too! After getting myself typed as an Autumn, I pared my wardrobe down to Autumn colours. After a while though, I noticed that I didn't care for all the colours. So now my edited selection of colours is brown, rust, burgundy, teal, sage/moss/olive greens.

I'm glad the limiting colors strategy is working for you, Iron Kurtin! And I'll admit I like seeing that you have a couple colors in addition to your signature neutrals.

Like Molly (hi there!), I'm an Autumn and therefore brown is one of my main colors. Darkest chocolate brown, warm brown, cognac, caramel, pumpkin, olive, moss, rust, ivory... these are my core colors. I never tire of them.

Reducing my color choices was part of my strategy when I downsized my closet (from giant walk-in to small basic closet). Now its all black/white/gray/denim/turquoise/purple/fuschia. Yes, I agree...much easier to pull together an outfit. I do wear a little less black in summer and a little less white in winter but in general this palate has been working for me year-round.

Having a limited palette works for me, too. My core wardrobe is black, cobalt, charcoal, and navy. Then I mix in white, other shades of blue, and cool greens. I like that most everything goes with most everything else color wise so that I only need to worry about proportions when choosing an outfit.

I decided to try a limited color palette when I discovered YLF in late August. I chose six colors and removed everything from my closet that didn't qualify. (They're in another closet; I didn't get rid of them...yet) Right away I noticed how nicely coordinated my closet LOOKED, and I also found that limiting colors made shopping much easier. I didn't even consider anything outside of the six designated colors.
We've had a change in weather-- it's quite a bit colder, so I'm reworking my closet and swapping out two of the colors for two others.

Your choices sound very good.

I'm working on this a lot more, including trying to identify some neutrals that work together that do not include black, white, navy or denim ! That's challenging! I still want to find good ways to pair grays with cool browns (my tree bark color palette!) and find more of the mixtures that I love, but these are harder to come by. Also, combining different grays is challenging and can be too dull for a total outfit.

After some experimentation and some aha moments, where it's leading me, I think, is to identify the non-neutral color that can function as a near-neutral.
I think this is going to be a form of cranberry-burgundy, medium depth but not too dark or it's light-sucking. It is both cool and warm, if that makes sense, and that's where I fit. Sure, it might also be fuchsia or deep pinks or similar colors that I like, but the slightly richer cranberry type color serves as a bridge.

I personally feel that color is overrated.

Except when it isn't!

Great idea, and I've been thinking on this myself lately. Don't get me wrong, I really love colors! But my favorites are shades of blue (including teal) and shades of red (especially darker shades). And I'm most happy when I'm wearing black, gray, white, blue and/or red. If I didn't love variety so much, I would probably ditch all other colors (and I may still give it a short term experiment).

I really like this idea, IK. It's interesting to see how many other people share this approach.

Personally, I didn't plan to do this with my colour palette, but I when I scan my winter work wardrobe, it's black, charcoal, navy/denim, white with accents of cranberry, purple and emerald... These are the colours I naturally gravitate to and don't even pick up items in other colours - they just don't appeal to me.

I don't find myself bored, and it makes dressing for work a lot quicker.

IK,

How is this going? Our colors are almost the same. I'm not yet sure about keeping denim blue.

- grey
- black
- white
- some purples
- light blue

Would like to have more charcoal than black, but am coming at this from a position of being short on some essentials. Being too picky about black vs grey cost me some progress before YLF.

Like DonnaF, I'm finding grey undertones a challenge in mixing them.

Keeping shoes/belt/etc to black, for now. Some grey boots and belts have caught my eye lately, maybe I'll revisit that after I've got essentials lined up.

I bet your closet looks lovely with that color palette. One beautiful capsule!

Amy K, I am still loving it. I did look at my closet the other day and think, whoa, that is a lot of gray - but I love EVERYTHING in there, so - so be it!