Color Theory Introduction

As I stated in my initial post here, General Fashion Philosophy, one of the five things we have control over in fashion is color. This may be my favorite aspect of fashion, that is, playing with colors and their mutual interactions. Given the billions of colors that our eyes can perceive, the sartorial possibilities seem endless. Unfortunately, many people are afraid to stray from their safety nets of blacks, browns, blues and whites. Worse still, many people don’t understand even how to utilize these colors effectively. Thus, I’m going to spend an indefinite number of posts describing my thoughts on color theory, and how best to utilize colors to achieve your fashion goals.

Remember that our focus here is going to be selecting clothes (in this case, colors) with a specific purpose. I can’t tell you what purposes or goals you should have, I can only give guidance on how to achieve the goals I personally choose. I hope that you can apply the techniques I use here to your own fashion goals. Do not be intimidated by this process. In reality, it doesn’t take long to come up with a reason for what you’re wearing, nor does it take long to implement it. Plus, once you’ve designed a few outfits, they can of course be reused later on, without all of the thinking.

For those interested in the theory of colors in its own right, I must refer you to Itten’s The Art of Color. It really is the best thing out there on the subject. Even those with more ancillary interests in color (like mine) should pick up a copy. There are, of course, more basic introductions available freely on the web, which you might want to check out first, so;

I’ll keep this pst updated with links to the newest related articles both from my blog (as I crank them out) , and any other materials I find on the subject out on the web:

On fashionablemathematician:

Chapter 1: Basics and Definitions
Chapter 2: Effects of Individual Colors
Chapter 3: Simple Color Combinations
Chapter 4: Proportions and Intensities
Chapter 5: Monochromatic Combinations and Coherence
Chapter 6: Complementary Colors and Contrast
Chapter 7: Split and Dual Complements
Chapter 8: The Intermediary Contrast
Chapter 9: Analogous Combinations

Outside Links:

http://www.worqx.com
http://www.colormatters.com/colortheory.html