"Once you have discovered what does suit you, do keep to it!"

- Christian Dior

 At Sophia and Pilar, one of our loves is colour...mmm....we love the power of colour, the sheer joy and beauty of colour!  Too often, what's available to us is just more of the same old, same old, SAFE colours...sigh...navy, beige, black, white...

Don't get us wrong - we love those colours too. In fact, they are truly elegant colours which form the backbone of any wardrobe but a wardrobe full of basic colours can get a little well, boring....

So...colour yourself beautiful!

We chose to brighten up our life and yours with a wide offering of colour, from the timeless classic colours with a twist, to other more lively - but universal - colours which are flattering to everyone. 

Let's just swoop in on that phrase "universal colours"

Explanation please.

Well, the colour you choose to wear has the power to make you look alive and vibrant or faded and sick, but universal colours are colours which have just the right mix of warm and cool tones, with a little bit of black and white added and they are flattering to all.

These are examples of universal colour choices

Mid-navy, Stone, Watermelon, Emerald, Warm Pink, Butter Yellow

And these are classic colours

Black, Blue&White Gingham and Deep Olive                                                                                                                    

Ok, we have to admit that Black,  White and Blue Gingham, and Olive Green are not quite as universal as the others, but the rules of colour can be bent, if you know how, and it's not that tricky! (Stay tuned!)                

Don't forget to use contrast!

You maybe wearing a super flattering colour but you can end up looking like a long glass of water if you forget contrast.

This is pretty simple - but easily forgotten. We will be posting further on how to de-construct contrast using the colour wheel and explaining personal colour contrast levels, but for our purpose here, it's using different colours with different items you're wearing to create contrast and interest, or having enough contrast between the garment and your skin colour.  

Our beautiful model has a lovely tan skin which creates contrast between her skin and the dresses, but you can see how we've bumped the outfits up a notch with eye-catching earrings, and contrasting coloured bags and shoes. The colours come alive when you play with them like this.

That's another thing that so good about universal colours - they have just the right level of contrast in their mix for everyone - true fact.

Colour has the power to make you look alive and vibrant or faded and sick.

This works powerfully well in theatre, but generally we're pretty sure people prefer to be looking alive and vibrant.

You can pretty much wear any colour in the colour spectrum but whether it suits you or not depends on how much black, white, grey, yellow or blue has been added to it. Over the coming posts, we're going to guide you in the right direction to the simplest personal colour system we know, which uses nature as its basis ~Winter-Summer-Spring-Autumn~ 

But today's takeaway is to ponder on universal colours and colour's most important friend - contrast.

and to repeat the advice from one of the most iconic designers of the last century

With love, 

Gemma

xo