Transitioning away from black

Are you someone who wears a lot of black? Chances are, if you’re a woman in Melbourne or London, you do. But have you stopped to think about why you wear black and what it’s doing for you?

Do you think it’s slimming? Many people think it is. It’s true that black can help to hide detail, but so can many other deep colours. Because black has what we call ‘visual weight’ it can also look very heavy. So yes, black can look slimming if it suits you but if it doesn’t it may not be having the effect you hoped.

If black doesn’t suit your natural colouring, and you wear it near your face, it can reflect and draw attention to everything dark. This includes bags under your eyes, anywhere the skin slackens and shadows where vertical and horizontal lines are forming. Black can make an otherwise healthy glowing complexion look tired and drained of vitality. We all have a few lines, bags or sags but just as black can highlight these, other lighter or brighter colours can reflect light onto them with the result of them seemingly vanish through being illuminated.

What do you know about your own natural colouring? Is black your friend? If you have strong deep and cool colouring you are likely to look magnificent in black! But if your colouring is strong, deep and warm; not so much.

Black can denote authority and power. Think of certain uniforms, intimidating black cars and judges sitting in court. It’s a stern and serious colour. Is this how you’d like to be perceived? It can be handy to don some black if this is what you’re going for.

People often wear it if they’re feeling fragile, vulnerable or don’t want to be noticed. Wearing black can enable you to blend in because you’ll be surrounded by so many others wearing it; perfect if you’re introverted, reserved or shy. But if you want to shine, wear colour.

Children respond well to colour. Consider this if you’re wanting to strike a rapport with young ones as they will notice and appreciate it. Incidentally, I’ve had a number of primary school and kindergarten teachers come to me for advice on what colours work for them for exactly this reason. 

When I was younger I had very long, very dark hair and I wore a lot of black. It suited me. I generally paired it with a bolder colour like red or purple. Although it no longer works for me, I still have some black in my wardrobe as there are some things I won’t part with (such as a great leather jacket I got in Argentina). But I try not to accumulate too many new black things.

If I wear black,  I know how to blend it into outfits using colours that do suit me. I’m going to talk you through an example of this. I’m a massive fan of local designer, Nevada Duffy so when I saw this top from her I couldn’t resist it! Yes, there is black in it but because of the placement, I knew I could make it work for me. (Placement of colour is really significant and something I touch on in a Colour Analysis and go into a lot more detail in during the Style Direction and to an extent, my Shape and Style consultations.)

The beauty of this Nevada Duffy top is that the black is down the bottom (far away from my face) and it has a splash of orange through it. Orange is a colour that works well for me and is in the upper part of the top. That integration is important. Simply wearing black on the bottom with nothing to integrate it throughout the outfit will just look bottom heavy.

The other thing about the black panel is that the top seam adjoins an aqua colour (drawing attention to where these contrasting colours meet). The placement of the seam is at one of the slimmer parts of me, so I am ok with the focus there.

Also, I have a short waist, but by the wearing this top (with the lower part in black) I can pair it with black jeans or a black skirt, and it performs the illusion of making my torso look longer. It achieves a look that is similar to wearing high waisted jeans. Because I can read a garment and understand the effect colours have so well I knew immediately that the top was perfect for me.

This is one way you can get black to work for you. If you still have colours in your wardrobe you suspect don’t work for you, I can show you how you can style them to make them work. Because I endorse sustainability and minimal waste, I believe changing your wardrobe should be a gradual process, not one where you discard everything. Knowing how to transition is the key.