I decided on a fairly limited color palette with
- neutrals of brown/cognac, denim, and cream
- main colors of teal and olive
- accent colors of coral (spring) and burnt orange (fall)
One thing I appreciated about the book was her insistence that redheads are warm autumns, not warm springs. I had been struggling between the two, and thus I had too many choices. The most major difference is that NAVY is NOT a recommended color for me. I decided to follow one of my favorite quotes from the book: "Why look good when it's just as easy to look great?" I've always felt that navy looked good on me, but maybe BROWN looks better! I had been waffling between navy and brown as my main neutral, struggling to make a cohesive wardrobe with both. So with the help of a friend, I decided to pull the plug on navy. It doesn't look bad, but it will make my wardrobe much simpler and easier to mix and match if I stick with brown and get rid of the navy.
My classic example is that I bought two blanket scarves, because I was unable to decide which one was better, the navy one or the brown one. Then I always felt funny if I wore the navy one with my brown coat, because it didn't quite match...maybe I should get a navy coat too? That's when I realized that if I kept them both, I would almost need TWO wardrobes: one for navy and one for brown. So with a sigh, I decided to get rid of the navy. I went through my wardrobe and put away all the clothes that are not in my colors. I've been shopping quite a bit, trying to replace them with items in my colors. It's really too bad, because it wasn't that long ago that I started purchasing more navy as I started getting rid of black. Also, I'm discovering that brown seems to be much more difficult to find in stores. For example, the dress suit section typically contains suit jackets/pants/skirts in black, navy, and gray.
I have found with the pieces I've added so far (maybe I'll write another post sometime about that), it is much easier to mix and match my wardrobe. I've added a lot of olive green (it's semi-neutral anyway) and coral. I had added the burnt orange a few years ago, and I've always had a lot of teal. I'm having a harder time finding clothes, but when I do, they are worth the effort.
