Dressing for your season – Outfits for a Summer colour palette

Seasonal colour analysis, colour theory, and “dressing for your season” are not only popular buzzwords, but also valuable methods for improving your style and making shopping easier. But what is seasonal colour analysis exactly?

Seasonal colour analysis combines colour psychology and colour wheel research to guide fashion-conscious shoppers in selecting clothing that compliments their features and skin tones. This approach is founded on colour theory, which is a practical guide for understanding how colour works in fashion, design, and art.

Seasonal colour analysis suggests the best colour palette for an individual depending on their skin tone, eyes, hair, and lips. Suzanne Caygill, an American colour theorist, popularised this strategy in the 1980s by combining colour psychology and seasonal palette theory. Caygill’s methodology inspired modern seasonal colour analysis, which is mostly based on psychologist Carole Jackson’s book Colour Me Beautiful.

We will use a twelve-season colour analysis, which breaks down the four basic seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter) into three sub-seasons each, for a total of twelve seasons.

While some people might be able to immediately recognise themselves in one of the “main” seasons, other folks might lean toward less pronounced and more neutral types: this is where the twelve-season model comes in. Finding your colour season is easier said than done, and we especially love this guide on the topic.

To make a very long story as short as possible, the two basic variables that determine your seasonal type are:

1. The undertone of your complexion, hair, and eyes (warm/golden or cool/ashy).
2. How light or deep your general colouration—and specifically your hair—is.

Seasons reflect the four distinct combinations of these two variables.

If your natural hair colour is lighter than medium brown, you are classified as Spring or Summer; if it is darker, you are classified as Winter or Autumn.

If your skin tone and hair have a warm undertone, or you are a natural redhead, you would be labelled as either a Spring or an Autumn; if your complexion has a blue-ish, chilly undertone and your hair is more ashy and has no golden or red highlights, you are either a Summer or a Winter.

If your features are cool, light, and muted you might very well be a Summer. If that’s the case, you’re in the right place! Welcome to Stylight’s shopping guide for the Summer colour season.

The Summer colour palette is reminiscent of long summer days spent by the sea, and its colours remind of fresh ice cream flavour or a dive into cold water. Summer features are cool, light, and muted; if you’re part of the Summer season your features will be overall gentle and delicate.

The Summer season is classified into three sub-seasons: Light Summer, True Summer, and Soft Summer.

Light Summer is one of the three summer seasons. The primary colour aspect of a Light Summer’s appearance is light, and the secondary aspect is cool, meaning cool colours suit them better than warm ones. Light Summers have cool—blue and grey—undertones, meaning that silver suits them better than gold.

You’re a Light Summer if your features are all very light with little contrast between them. If you’re a person of colour, you might have pretty light colouring for your ethnicity.

Light Summer eyes can be light blue, grey, or green and have a cool, greyish undertone. Their irises might feature the “crackled glass” pattern typical of Summer eyes.

Their skin ranges from fair to medium in tone, and is characterised by beige or pink undertones, making it neutral or neutral-cool.

Lastly, Light Summer’s hair is also light, going from ashy blonde (light to medium) to light ashy brown with no natural highlights. For people of colour, your hair will be a lighter shade of brown that is in low contrast with the rest of your features.

The Light Summer’s appearance combines lightness with coolness, and their colour palette reflects these characteristics. It contains medium-saturation, cool colours like light pinks and bluish-greens.

Due to the lightness of your colouring, true black is unflattering on Light Summers, making them appear older. Some better options for dark neutrals are dark ash browns and dark greyish blues.

On the same note, pure white looks too harsh against a Summer’s low-contrast features; light beiges, greys, and browns are the way to go for light neutrals.

Light Summers’ colouring is brighter than the other two Summer sub-season, but equally as delicate; therefore, the best outfits for you will be contrasted, but not too much.

Monochromatic combinations, like pairing a light blue with a medium blue, are an easy way to achieve a delicate yet bright look.

You can also try hue contrasting by pairing two neighbouring hues together, like pink and lavender.

Lastly, you can always pair a neutral with a bright accent colour, sticking to the shades featured in your palette.

What colours should Light Summers avoid? Anything that is warm and/or dark sits in direct opposition to your natural coloring, overpowering your natural softness.

Light Summers are known for their gentle, light appearance: for this reason, natural and sheer make-up looks flatter them the most.

For your make-up looks, take inspiration from the Light Summer colour palette: light neutrals like creams and greys, and brighter pastels like blues, purples, and turquoise are the most flattering on you. Red, peach, pink and coral are also great options. Black should be avoided even in make-up, especially mascara and eyeliner.

Tip: for your eye make-up choose a colour similar to your eyes to bring them out.

Bright Spring boasts a cohort of ultra-stylish celebs you can look to for inspiration. Some of them include:

• Margot Robbie
• Michelle Pfeiffer
• Cate Blanchett
• Princess Diana
• Lili Reinhart
• Kirsten Dunst

The “original” Summer season, True Summer has cool as its primary colour aspect and muted as the secondary aspect, meaning that cool colours appear more flattering than warm ones.

The colouring of a True Summer’s features is muted, meaning that your features blend in together rather than contrast each other. Still, True Summer is the most contrasted among the Summer sub-seasons.

Lastly, your features all have cool undertones—like blue or beige—, so silver is the best metal for you.

True Summer’s eyes are always softly greyed and muted in colour, therefore less vibrant than Spring or Winter eyes. They can be blue, grey, green, and light grey hazel, or greyish-brown for non-white folks.

Their skin is also cool and often has a rosy tinge to it. It ranges from fair to medium in shade.

Lastly, their hair can be any colour from dark blonde to dark brown, but the defining characteristic is the total absence of brightness and warmth: True Summer hair is ashy and muted with no red undertones or natural highlights.

The True Summer colour palette is cool, calming, and refreshing, and has all the colours of water: the blues and greens of rivers, lakes and deep oceans.

This season falls at the coolest end of Summer: therefore, its colours are cool with a clear blue undertone. Overall, this coolness is combined with soft pinks and neutrals throughout the palette.

Just like with Light Summer, true black and pure white are no-gos for True Summer as well: you can swap them for dark greys, blues, and browns or sand tones, grey-blues, and very light greys.

The colours True Summers should avoid are mainly warm, bright, and harsh: warm and saturated shades, earthy shades with yellow undertones, and harsh Winter shades clash with your cool and soft appearance.

Like the other Summer sub-seasons, True Summer’s features blend rather than contrast, even though they’re still more contrasting than Light Summer. Therefore, the best outfits for True Summer will be complementary or medium-contrast.

Monochromatic looks are an easy way to achieve this soft contrast: simply pair a lighter tint with a darker shade of the same hue, like a darker purple with lilac.

Alternatively, another effortless way of achieving the right amount of contrast is pairing a neutral and an accent colour of similar values, like stone grey and muted raspberry pink.  Due to your naturally delicate appearance, neutrals will never make you look dull.

Lastly, you can take a leaf out of Light Summer’s book and combine neighbouring hues of the same value, like pink and lilac.

True Summer’s colours are cool, quite muted, and medium-light. Therefore, makeup for a True Summer is at its best when it’s cool and understated—but always with a pop of colour.

The taupes, whites, and greys in the True Summer colour palette will be your neutral eyeshadows, while the pinks, plums, blues and greens will be your blush, eyeliner, lipsticks, and bold eyeshadows.

Tips:

• Always opt for matte finishes or a slight shimmer.
• Bring out your eyes by using eyeliner in a similar colour.
• Avoid bronzer, as your complexion is too cool for it.

True Spring boasts a cohort of ultra-stylish celebs you can look to for inspiration. Some of them include:

• Olivia Wilde
• Emily Blunt
• Margaret Qualley
• Barbara Palvin
• Charlotte Casiraghi
• Claire Foy

Soft Summer is muted and cool. The Soft Summer colour palette features very desaturated, greyed-out hues that would wash out other colour seasons. They do, however, offer understated beauty to Soft Summer.

The primary colour aspect for this season is muted, and the secondary is cool. Your skin, eyes, and hair appear almost “greyed out” and seem to blend into each other. Even though Soft Summer’s contrast level is between low and medium, the most important feature is their blended, muted colouring.

As part of the Summer season, your colouring has cooler undertones, meaning that silver looks better on you than gold.

Soft Summer eyes feature the typical Summer crackled glass pattern on the iris and can be grey, grey-blue, grey-green, grey-hazel, or muted brown for darker ethnicities.

Their skin ranges from fair to tan in tone and is either neutral, olive or neutral-cool with ashy undertones and possibly a pink tinge. Soft Summers often have freckles.

Their hair ranges from medium ash blonde to medium ash brown, and maintains a muted and ashy tone. In the summer it might develop ashy blonde highlights.

The Soft Summer palette is gentle and mysterious. It contains both warm and cold tones which create a surprisingly harmonious balance. All these shades are muted and gentle, to match the low to medium contrast of Soft Summer.

The palette includes desaturated, low-contrast, blue-based colours: the focus is on greys but also pinks, purples, blues, and greens with an almost foggy appearance. Soft Summer colours are the darkest of the Summer family.

As part of the Summer family, Soft Summer should avoid true black and pure white as they are too harsh. Greyish dark browns make better dark neutrals, while light greys, sand tones, and muted beiges are good light neutrals.

Soft Summers should avoid, apart from black and white, colours that are bright and warm. Intense, vibrant colours, as well as rich and warm hues, will clash with your natural coolness and softness.

Soft Summer’s natural colouring blends rather than contrasts, so colour combinations that complement each other are the way to go.

The best way to achieve this is through monochromatic colour combinations, like pairing a darker green with a lighter one.

Unlike the other two Summer sub-seasons, Soft Summer doesn’t wear hue contrast too well. Still, you can try pairing neighbouring hues of the same value, like lavender purple with a lighter blue or light beige with a similarly light yellow.

Generally speaking, monochromatic combinations of pastels and greyed-out colours are what looks the best on Soft Summers.

Lastly, avoid pairing highly contrasting colours, especially those that sit opposite each other on the colour wheel.

Soft Summer is all about blended shades, and the same applies to makeup. The term “nude makeup” applies to Soft Summer—and its sister season Soft Autumn.

Look to the Soft Summer colour palette for the best makeup shades: the creams, browns and greys will be your neutral eyeshadows; the muted cool pinks, plums, blues or greens will be your blush, lipstick, and bold eyeshadows.

Tip: Always go for matte finishes for all your products, and use an eyeliner similar to your eye colour to make them pop.

Soft Summer boasts a cohort of ultra-stylish celebs you can look to for inspiration. Some of them include:

• Bella Hadid
• Dakota Johnson
• Adriana Lima
• Leona Lewis
• Christy Turlington
• Kate Middleton