The importance of clothing colours

We have discussed a lot about the wonders of dressing within the same colour palette. In this post we will elaborate on this a little bit more by talking about the importance of clothing colours. You may also want to take a look at notes you have taken in your art lessons, if you have still kept them. If this isn’t the case, no need to worry: down here is all you need to know.

The importance of light and dark clothing colours

You know why Leonardo Da Vinci’s works are so particular and beautiful? Because he intelligently used the effects that light and dark colours have on the eye. We will also use a similar principle to our advantage. (Yes, it’s a kind of optical illusion in clothing.)

We know that light colours can enlarge, while dark colours can slim and eventually shrink too. At first, we can try doing this with black and white clothing pieces. But… if these don’t work for us we can use colours with similar intensity. Instead of black, for example, we can use navy, burgundy, hunter green or eggplant among many. The possibilities are pretty much infinite.

To look at this in a more hands-on manner, grab a pair of jeans you’ve worn a lot, and look where there are lighter washes and darker washes. A darker wash seems a size smaller to one with a lighter wash, if the colour is pretty uniform. Otherwise, you may notice that a lighter wash on the buttock area of your jeans might make your glutei seem bigger. Or a light wash down your thighs actually makes them seem larger than they are. You get it.

How to rebalance your silhouette with colours

Here you will need to consider where you have more volume. This will also help you achieve a cleaner look as well. Now here’s a slight catch: limit the number of colours that you wear. Why? For the same reason.

You will want to know your undertone to be able to make this work in the best way for you. Note though, that cool colours have a tendency to shrink more than warm ones and that bright colours enlarge more than muted ones.

If your torso is more abundant, you will want to wear a dark colour there and choose a light colour for your bottoms. If your legs are more abundant, wear a light top and darker bottoms.

The power of colour block

To make your silhouette a tad more linear, you can rely on the power of colour block: you can create this by wearing an all-black look paired with a constrasting jacket or shawl. This just one of a million ways to create it: you have your whole closet you can experiment with.

A particularity of colour block is that you don’t necessarily have to create it: you can also find it on certain pieces of clothing if you look carefully. Maybe you already even own some of them! In particular, let’s briefly mention illusion dresses. These have a vertical line in one colour (example:navy) and on the sides of this line the rest is of a different colour, say white for example.

The illusion can also be created by putting different textiles of the same colour next to each other: wool and velvet for example. We’ll discuss this last one in more detail next time though.