Learning about color theory

I've read a lot recently about color theory and find it fascinating.  I always knew that, as a redhead, I looked best in blues and greens, but that was the extent of my knowledge.  Randomly last fall (2014), I bought a dress in a burnt orange color, and many people told me it a good color for me.  I was perplexed, and so I set out to learn what colors look best on me in the hopes of improving and minimizing my wardrobe.

The best website I have found about color theory is this one: http://into-mind.com/2013/09/24/colour-analysis-part-i-finding-your-type/ There are various articles on this site with even more information on determining your type.

After a lot of reading, I decided that I am either a warm autumn or a warm spring, possibly somewhere in the middle.  I decided that I would wear colors from either palette:


As you can probably guess, the lighter colors on the left are for warm spring, and the darker colors on the right are for warm autumn.  I've even considered wearing spring colors in the spring/summer and autumn colors in the fall/winter!

I was excited to see that the colors I chose for the fall were both in my color palette (teal and burnt orange).  Even the dark red of my Christmas sweater fits within the fall palette.  It was also very interesting to me to see that, even though purple has always been my favorite color, maybe there was a subconscious reason why I don't have much purple in my wardrobe.   However, I've also read that certain shades of purple are universally flattering, and my husband thinks it is a fine color for me, so I've decided to keep a little purple around.

Also, I discovered that "warm" people look better in gold than silver.  This was disappointing to me, because my whole life I have always preferred silver or white gold jewelry.  However, I decided to trust the experts and give gold a try.  As I mentioned in my last post, I bought two necklace/earring sets in gold-color in December.  Unfortunately, I have a lot of sentimental/irreplaceable jewelry in silver/white gold, so I will probably just wear both and not worry too much about it!  If I never noticed that silver is not as flattering as gold for the past 30 years, it's probably not that big of a deal, right?

Another color-related decision I have made as a result of learning about color theory is trying to eliminate/reduce black from my wardrobe.  I've always known that black washes me out, but it's supposedly slimming, so I have some black.  I read an article about trying to eliminate black from your wardrobe, which recommended animal print as a transition piece as you replace black items in your wardrobe.  You can read the article here: http://www.theviviennefiles.com/2011/08/transitioning-from-one-color-palette-to_29.html I was happy to read this, since I had already begun experimenting with mixing black and brown with my new leopard print scarf.  I think I may keep a little black around, just not too much.  The main items I plan to keep are a black wrap dress (which I have worn with a denim jacket, brown leggings, brown boots, and my leopard print scarf), black jeans, and black tall boots.  Below is the brown/black/leopard outfit, which is one of the most worn outfits from the past few months at 3 wears:

Since this picture was taken, I've also started tying the scarf ends together to make a circle scarf look, which I think looks better. 

Looking forward to the spring, I chose pink and green to be my new colors.  However, because I despise winter, I have decided to bring them in early for my winter wardrobe.  I have only committed to putting away the burnt orange until next fall.

I also had another reason to look forward to spring as my husband and I have traveled to a warm climate for the first week of January this year.  Yay!  It was so exciting for me to plan outfits for warm weather.  I'll write about that more in a separate post.  :)