BS: Help for the Color-Challenged

Subject: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 05:09 PM

OMG, this WORKS!

I have always envied the abiliy some people have to put colors together in a really attractive way. So I was thinking what to wear to an important meeting, and I had two items I needed to wear because they were clean! And pressed! All I lacked was-- which shell to wear with the jacket and trousers?.

So I thought, I bet if I look at my huge collection of scarves, I'll find at least one with those two colors (blue and olive) and I bet there will be a third color in it that I ALSO have, for the shell. And indeed I did-- a shade of burnt orange in the scarf is the color of one of my shells, and viola! Put them all together, and I look like I know what I am doing and THEN found the perfect scarf.... but no, it turns out-- the scarf comes first!

I learned this from looking at bird photographs. The males' coloring is counterintuitive, but works so well.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: Bert
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 05:19 PM

And your local paint store will have swatches of fashionable matching colors.

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 06:27 PM

Birds wearing multi-coloured scarfs?

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 06:31 PM

No, silly, paint swatches!

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: Sorcha
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 07:38 PM

Birds wear watches?

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: frogprince
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 08:15 PM

Oh, good; my paisley tie has the same colors as my plaid shirt and my blue slacks; I'm good to go!

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 08:17 PM

I thought this thread was going to be about aid to white people...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: maeve
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 08:28 AM

Susan- Good for you. That's a fine way to put together an outfit when you need to.

Amos, while you're in the cellar (Now!) perhaps you could redecorate it.

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 09:29 AM

The males' coloring is counterintuitive, but works so well.

That's what I always think myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 12:59 PM

Handy color book is "Color Index" by Jim Krause -- sure, it's a graphic arts book and gives formulations in CMYK and RGB, but will also give you a good sense of what colors look good together. And since Pantone (PMS = Pantone Matching System) is coming out with color books for use in fashion and decor, why not use another handy color book originally for graphc arts?

Linn (who measures things in picas and points and has used PMS colors to match clothing)

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: MMario
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 01:01 PM

PMS comes in colours?

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 01:22 PM

In the print world, it does. (Oh, web, too, but I'm print oriented -- CMYK not RGB.)

In raging hormonal unbalance world, well, I don't remember any colors!

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 02:40 PM

PMS is red and orange, unless you get in the way (and you usually do) in which case, you end up black and blue.

Now feck off back to that cellar!

Be careful how you match from birds though... this could happen to you.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: gnu
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 02:54 PM

Amos. I thought it might be about the colour blind. I have blue, green, and black tee shirts and pants. I think. And white tee shirts, just for a splash of colour... er, contrast.

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: wysiwyg
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 03:48 PM

Well, what I HAVE is a closet-full of the colors I like, since I already knew that if we like something, it will probably go with other things we like. I just have to work hard to remember, when I look for pieces to put on, that they do not all have to be the same color-- to get away from that matchy-matchy, monochromatic thing. I can usually pick TWO colors that go well together-- it's that elusive third one that I forget how to do, each time, and have to see it to do it.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 04:00 PM

Reminds me of home improvement shows, in which they use an 'inspiration fabric' to determine a good color combination. Susan, save yourself the trouble of scarves and just buy a print blouses! (In a solid color and baggy clothing rut. Blue jeans and whatever.)

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 04:10 PM

I wear a lot of fairly conservative colors, dark green, dark blue, black, some "natural" cotton and linen, though there are bits of color that I remember to use on occasion. It's out in my garden that I really go nuts with the colors and enjoy mixing plants for interesting effects. Birds come and go in that scheme.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 04:34 PM

This gave me an idea...

Get a great bird book in color.

Label what mood each bird inspires.

note each color of that particular bird and those are the colors that will work for that particular ensemble including acessories.

If designers don't do this they should.

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: Mr Red
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 05:12 PM

No problem with colours at Rouge Towers, red all the way down to the pink.

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: wysiwyg
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 07:13 PM

the trouble of scarves

NONONO! No trouble-- a closetfull from the thrift shop that coordinate all the rest, make pretty prints out of solid underlayers, and catch food drips too without wrecking the more expensive stuff under them! :~)

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 03:49 AM

All you need are two complimentary (from the same third of the colour wheel) and one contrast (opposite side of the wheel). Dead easy.

Even easier if you just wear black all the time. Saves on washing loads too, as you don't have to separate the lights and darks.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Help for the Color-Challenged
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 09:26 AM

That may work for someone else, but I already HAD all-black, then I had all-navy. Now I have color because that's what I decided to do and invested in. Plus I already have an all-black-wearing husband.

~Susan