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Your Versatile Neutrals
A good foundation of quality pieces in your neutrals can form the basis of a great wardrobe. Of course, your neutrals aren’t always available on the racks each year or each season.
This year you’ll see black and white everywhere. (I imagine the CEO of Black Market and White House is doing a happy dance.) And not everyone can wear it.
The juxtaposition of black and white automatically says, “contrast” and in this case it’s a strong one. You can’t get a more dramatic example of contrast than black and white except, maybe, with red and black. Unless you have a lot of Strong Contrast in your own coloring and/or a fair amount of drama, tread lightly on this black-and-white trend. Here are a few examples of how it has been done successfully.
The dotted jumpsuit doesn’t have a lot of contrast and reads as more Youthful than a lot of black and white prints. Those with a lot of the Spring color essence can likely wear this well, as the print is smaller in scale and not overpowering. A little “quiet” but we’re talking about neutrals after all.
How does a primarily Subtle Blended essence woman do black and white? Subtley. Her version will likely be more gray and white to complement her more subtle coloring. In this case, the “gray” is a blue-gray version that suits her better than a charcoal. (Cute combo, btw…) Her white may or may not be this bright either, but overall it can likely work for this color type.
Our Fall girl also has to be very careful. Some Falls also have a good deal of 
Winter, or strong contrast (this includes some Latin American, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean women) so for them it might work. In general, though, their white needs to be a bit more yellow or creamier than stark white, and their black is often charcoal. But wearing them in large amounts together can really wash out someone with a lot of Fall color essence.
And then there’s gray – to which I devoted an entire blog post a while ago. Check it out here. Victoria Be
ckham – who has a fair amount of the Earthy Rich color essence, wears this gray beautifully. (It’s likely from her own collection.)
There are the neutrals for Classic pieces that for different color essences. Not everyone looks good in camel, not everyone looks good in khaki.
Khaki has, actually, some green in it. Camel has more red. Tan has yellow and Beige is a whitened version of brown and works for someone with brighter spring coloring. Train your eye to see the subtle differences and how they affect your skin tone.
You can go for safe by wearing neutrals in half body amounts away from your face, but those times you want
to make a more powerful statement wear all one neutral. (That is something that works amazingly well for older women who have let their hair go naturally white and who have strong bone structure.)
Yes, I know in the “street style” Instagram images of fashionistas you’ll see them wearing black and white and a plethora of colors regardless of their own color essences, but they make a living doing this. Wouldn’t you rather create color harmony with your own essence?
Learn about your unique color harmony and style facets by answering the detailed questionnaire in Shopping for the Real You. 
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