I have been dreaming of color analysis since I was a teenager. Growing up, having uniforms in the mainly khaki, maroon, navy, white spectrum, I desperately wanted to know what colors beyond those would best compliment my skin, eye, and hair color. For those not in the know, a color analysis involves draping an array of different colored and toned pieces of fabric to determine if your skin tone is best complemented by warm or cool, soft or bright, pastel or rich colors, each palette falling into a different season: Spring, Summer, Fall, or Winter.
My grandmother took her entire family to get color analysis when my mom was a preteen. My mom’s season was Winter, meaning cool, rich, jewel tones look best on her. Growing up, my mom’s color season clearly impacted her shopping decisions. “This is a really good purple on me,” or “That color washes me out,” were commonly dropped phrases. It seemed that by knowing her best colors, she could effectively and efficiently guard rail her clothing shopping. I wanted the guard rails to curtail mindless shopping and to focus my search to the absolute most perfect colors and shades for me.
My mom and I are pretty consistently told we look alike, so I always assumed we probably shared the same color season. We share similar facial structures, eye colors, and the same olive-y skin tone. My mom—as a Winter—always wears silver jewelry. Jewelry was one of my biggest fears when it came to color analysis, especially as I started dating my now-husband. What if I guessed wrong, and the engagement ring he bought me was not actually complimentary? What if the one thing I will wear til I die clashed with everything else about me? This only ramped up my desire to finally find an answer to what color season I am.
This past Sunday, at my highly anticipated color analysis. My appointment had been rescheduled due to weather, which just made me more excited as I’d been anxiously waiting since my husband gifted me the color analysis for Christmas. We arrived at the analyst’s house, where she had an office set up with a chair in front of a mirror in front of a window pouring natural light into the room.
After a few minutes of talking and getting to know each other, my color analyst pinned up my hair, leaving me with only my dark roots and mid-February pale skin. The first matter of business was to determine whether I had warm or cool undertones. My color analyst had described the toning system she uses as cool colors have a drop of blue in them, and warm colors have a drop of yellow. With an olive skin tone like my mom, I was lost, since olive is green and green is both blue and yellow.
My analyst started draping different toned white and colored pieces of fabric under my chin. The first was a cool-toned blue-white, and the next was a cool-toned maroon. This set was followed by a warm-toned cream and a rich brown. Once the drapes were set, she removed the warm-toned ones to reveal the blue-toned fabrics. “There’s a change,” she said. I had been staring at my face through the whole process and I desperately wanted to be a part of it, but the truth was I hadn’t noticed a change, at least not yet.
As my analyst layered more drapes of varying or opposite tones, we discovered that blues, regardless of warm or cool toning, would probably always look nice on me, considering my blue eyes. However, the drop of blue in the cool toned drapes really made my undereye bags and the veins in my temples pop. There was even a purple drape that made me look like I had just come inside from almost freezing to death. The warm toned drapes, on the other hand, brought out a hint of a natural glow. So it was decided: I had warm undertones.
Being warm-toned quelled one of my age-old color analysis fears: I was a gold girlie after all! My engagement ring and wedding band would not need to be replaced post-haste! We moved on to deciphering which warm-toned season I am: Spring or Autumn. Many more drapes were applied, removed, re-applied, removed even quicker, and by the end I was starting to see the change my color analyst had been seeing.
The reflection from a pistachio-hued drape reflected a pale green onto my jaw, making my chin seemingly recede. A rainforest green drape gave my cheek bones definition and reclaimed my chin. A baby pink drape took away all the shadows from my eyes, face, and neck, flattening my whole look, while a rich coral colored drape brought them back in a flattering way.
This differentiation between light and rich decided it: I was an Autumn. Autumn colors are rich, warm, earthy, and vibrant. My best colors were tan, oyster, beige, and marine navy. With all those light neutrals, I fought the urge to remind my color analyst just how pale I am right now, probably the palest I will be all year! Some other high-ranking colors were geranium, apricot, light sage, coffee, lizard grey, old gold, kingfisher, and forest green.
I was so excited to go home and look through all my clothes to determine which items fit this new color palette and which I could donate without so much as a second thought. I am an Autumn. I got home and flung open my closet and all the drawers of my dresser. I used my handy swatch kit I’d received with my diagnosis to parse out the items that did not complement my undertones. As I looked at the pile of clothes on my bed, I slowed down to realize there were items I couldn’t part with as easily as I’d hoped: an emerald green sweater my mom gave me, now much too cool for my palette; a berry shaded button down my great aunt gave me that hung off my shoulders just right; my favorite grey sweater; the top I wore to the first concert I went to with my husband.
While I did donate many clothes that had hung in my closet unworn for years, there are some pieces I am just too sentimental to get rid of. I’m thankful to have some semblance of an answer as to why the donated items were ones I never reached for, pieces that just didn’t look the way I wanted them to on me. And I’m also thankful for the presence of mind to not just tear it all down to start from scratch, but to recognize that being an Autumn doesn’t mean more to me than being my mom’s daughter.
Carlisle Patete (‘22) came to Calvin University from the mountains of North Carolina and graduated with a double major in film & media and creative writing. After brief stints in Los Angeles and Chicago, she now resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she enjoys sweet tea on her front porch and identifying every tree and bird she runs into on any hiking trail.
