Why Don’t Celebrities Dress According to Seasonal Color Analysis?
Actors and singers partially owe their career success to their great beauty. While talent and luck can factor into worldwide success, for most of these people, their livelihood and their looks are inextricably linked. So why is it that the majority of celebrities do not dress in accordance with their best personal colors, at least not all the time? Does this mean that color analysis, or wearing your best seasonal color palette, actually doesn’t matter?
As a color analyst and a staunch believer in the transformative power of color, of course you know my answer to that. (It matters! Big time.) To explain this apparent disparity, where celebrities often dress in their worst colors, I will present a two-part theory:
Celebrities are so often photographed and viewed in highly controlled situations where they have an entire team of artists to keep the illusion of their unnatural look functioning.
Celebrities are valued and judged more on their versatility and ability to reinvent themselves than they are purely on the quality of their consistent presentation.
We all have an “on” and an “off” mode. Getting dressed to attend a wedding looks different than walking to the mailbox. But celebrities have a much larger differential between their “on” and “off” modes. Their attendance at events can influence their success and future deals, so their glam squad is a business expense and a necessary investment. With dedicated hair and makeup stylists, as well as multiple fashion assistants, celebrities have a team putting in hours of time to ensure nothing is out of place.
Most of our contact with celebrities, even in the “raw” age of social media, comes through a filter, literally and figuratively. A music video or movie may as well be a painting, for how accurately it reflects reality. It is extremely rare for a member of the public to encounter any celebrity, in the flesh, in their natural state. Even red carpet photography is lit in particular synthetic ways, and celebrities are generally covered from top to bottom with makeup or false tanner. When onscreen, an actor or singer is lit in particular ways, made up and primped for hours beforehand, and the final product is scrutinized and smoothed until flawless. Our public perception of a star is, by nature, an illusion.
The detrimental effects of a poor color choice—for instance, a gray cast to the area around the mouth or a weak-looking jawline—can be deleted entirely in post-production, or minimized greatly simply from shining a particular hue of spotlight into the offending area or applying an impractical amount of makeup. Countering negative effects from the wrong color palette are baked into the process of correction for a celebrity’s styling team, much the way they would conceal and airbrush an untimely pimple. This kind of large-scale beauty intervention produces stunning results, but if that celebrity stepped right off set, even in full hair and makeup, and left behind the studio lighting and flattering camera placements, they might appear a lot less gorgeous if we met them outside in the parking lot.
The seasonal color system dictates that we wear makeup and fashion items which correspond directly with our natural appearance. That means that our skintone, haircolor, and eye color are all effortlessly coordinated with one another and our wardrobe, so long as we keep things in the same family. When adding colors outside of your own naturally-occuring palette, the consequence is that one of your natural features will appear less beautiful, or even look like it does not belong.
Take the example of a True Summer woman with ashy, dark blonde hair. She adds bright honey blonde highlights in an effort to mimic her favorite celebrity with golden, tousled locks. Our True Summer woman finds that now her skin looks overly pink—while it is not “too pink” in reality, she has added a too-yellow halo surrounding her face. Now her face is permanently at odds with her hair, when it was perfectly fine to begin with. In order to cover the pink, and to better coordinate with her hair, the woman applies a foundation that is just a little too warm for her. Now her face looks sunkissed and golden like her hair. But then her neck and chest look pink or even purple in comparison. Our True Summer woman discovers that she is no longer able to look her best with minimal makeup and fuss. She is required to hide much of her body skin, and to always wear higher coverage face makeup. Effortless beauty is no longer in her wheelhouse, only full glam.
Celebrities face this exact challenge, but they are able to disguise the process, as it is unglamorous and ruins their reputation as otherworldly beauties. When a celebrity with True Summer coloring gets a too-warm blonde dye job before a photoshoot, her skin tone can be corrected and airbrushed. And even when she attends a red carpet event, and doesn’t have the benefit of Photoshop, assistants carefully bronze her from scalp to sole so that not a sliver of her real skin tone is visible. In real life, a person trying to rock the wrong haircolor or an oddly colored blouse may think they can mitigate the strange effects of this color experiment on their skin. But without a team constantly attending to their need for coverage and correction, the end result is usually a disjointed and unfinished one.
The ability to transform and take on a novel appearance, whether in a film or in a new era of musical sound, is of utmost important to the famous and beautiful. Actors perceived as one-note are pigeonholed as supporting characters, earning lower wages and prestige. Musicians who produce the same sound from year to year are accused of being cowardly, risk-averse, and boring. Transforming visually is a kind of optical illusion that suggests to an audience that there is a profound alchemical change of the artistic sort happening under the surface. In fact, a star can get away with fewer artistic risks so long as they vary their visual appearance enough to suggest that they are experimental and fun.
Non-professionally-pretty people underestimate the amount of work that goes into posing and capturing the world’s most beautiful faces. These individuals have incredible levels of naturally-occurring beauty, but that does not mean that they look their best in every situation. However, the illusion that they can and do look equally amazing in every circumstance is a badge of honor in the world of the famous and beautiful.
Fashion magazines and casual fashion observers have one thing in common: they crave novelty and detest monotony. Trends cycle rapidly in the age of fast fashion and social media. Stars who set a hair color or style trend in October will find that, by November, their audience has moved onto ooh-ing and aah-ing over another. The dynamic nature of fashion is of course beneficial, from a certain perspective. The cycle keeps things fresh, introduces diverse choices, and forces designers and trendsetters to experiment. From a personal style perspective—for the average human, who has a set budget and a life with some practical constraints—the trend cycle may provide occasional inspiration, but does nothing to guide a sense of personal beauty and permanence.
The vast majority of us average folks contend with a certain amount of monotony in our daily lives. We go to the same job from day to day, bouncing between casual and business casual dress codes, with the occasional cocktail dress or suit for weddings or special holidays. We are rarely photographed, and almost never in an artistic way. Does this mean we cannot embrace the artistic in our fashion? Absolutely not! It does mean that each individual’s brand of fashion “art” needs to be more steady, and not so dynamic. To attain a high level of dynamism in one’s personal appearance, one must be prepared to:
Go to the salon multiple times per month to switch or maintain hair color
Own and store a large number of fashion garments with different vibes
Go shopping frequently—at least every two months—to maintain a fresh and diverse selection of silhouettes and color
Experiment with makeup often—at least every few weeks
For some people, the prospect of the above points is exciting! But those people are usually young, well-off, or their job rewards them for having an exciting, ever-changing appearance. If this describes you, there is no shame in enjoying fashion to this degree. The majority of my clients want to look good, feel good, and indulge their unique aesthetic taste—but they have no desire to shop frequently or to rotate their choices all the time.
Even setting aside appetite and budget for change, the average person does not experience any financial rewards or significant social accolades simply by switching up their look regularly. An individual with excellent personal style, who is recognized by their peers for this, likely possesses a more constant and identifiable look. This look is built on fundamentals like a color palette, shape or silhouette preferences, and durable pieces worn season after season. Thus, the average person generally experiences more personal satisfaction with a less-variable wardrobe, and even receives social benefit from this constancy. This is the complete opposite of the fashion ecosystem of a celebrity.
In the modern age, with a few notable exceptions, the majority of celebrities try on looks and discard them as quickly as possible. The exceptions are usually remarkable beauties, or else they have developed their personal style to be exquisitely sui generis, completely their own. Not every celebrity has the taste or interest to develop such a style, or perhaps their looks only place them in the top 10% of human beauty, not the top 1% (oh the horror!) Not every celebrity can be unique and interesting enough to cement their status as permanent fashion icon. The next best thing—beyond icon status—is simple relevance. Relevance can only be maintained through constant change, and so most celebrities exchange a small chance at timeless icon status for a larger piece of the pie of momentary interest.
In some cases, it even seems that celebrities wear unflattering items, makeup, or hair in a ritual manner. If they can appear wearing “challenging” items and not look completely terrible, it almost proves how exceptionally beautiful they are. I often see social media comment sections to this effect, with multiple people marveling over how a certain celebrity “pulls off” a wide variety of looks. In reality, this celebrity looks much more beautiful in certain specific outfits, but the fact that she is not hideous in others somehow earns her a higher level of admiration. If you were to use the 1-10 rating scale to assess a celebrity’s beauty, you might say they dropped from a 9.5 to a 7.5. Because they remain orders of magnitude more beautiful than the least attractive person in the world, they are applauded for maintaining a perfect appearance… but the average woman would not be interested in a sudden 2-point drop in her beauty just for the sake of novelty.
How does this relate back to us, the laypeople? We do not make our living pandering to the whims of the public, who are hungry to dissect and critique our outfits. We enjoy the luxury of privacy, and the knowledge that our careers are not dependent on remaining perfectly youthful, beautiful, and interesting-looking forever. As a result, personal style can be developed using our own private desires and constraints, without input from the peanut gallery.
Celebrities may not dress according to a personal color palette simply because its benefits are not as relevant to their goals. They are required to compete, in rather grueling ways, to prove that their looks deserve to be spotlighted, compared to an endless supply of equally beautiful, and younger, models. Looking like the best version of yourself—which is the ultimate goal in color analysis—simply doesn’t cut it under these conditions. Looking your best takes a backseat to looking different all the time. Oftentimes, these experiments fall flat, and celebrities are ridiculed for the obvious hideous dye job, or strange dress choice. But many times, simply venturing to try something new garners attention and a boost to their profile that is worth looking not-quite-themselves.
Of course, there are times you can find celebrities dressing in their color season. I spot this most often:
At the beginning of their careers, actors, musicians, and some models need to set themselves apart from the riffraff by showing that they belong to the rarefied top 1-10% of beautiful people in the world. They also may be scrounging for lower-profile commercial opportunities, or background jobs, which place more importance on looking relatable, grounded, and complete than exotic or interesting.
When receiving an important award, celebrities often gravitate towards a more iconic, less trendy way of wearing colors. You will often see more natural hair texture and color, subdued makeup calibrated to their features and coloring, and jewelry and clothing that appear as if they may have been owned for many years (even if they are custom-made for the occasion.)
When pregnant, female celebrities often abandon the race to look different, and settle for looking like themselves. Pregnancy confers a special exemption from looking the youngest and thinnest for a few short months and, ironically, this time often produces some of their best, most cohesive, memorable looks.
When taking on a stable and “conservative” job like talk show host. Because these jobs are less experimental, edgy, and risky, the celebrity is expected to appear relatable, like their own individual person, not like someone who chases trends. They may have access to a larger wardrobe than the average working person, but they have more consistency of presentation and often more pragmatic day-to-day outfits.
When auditioning for opportunities which suit their own type of beauty, actors, musicians, and models will naturally embrace their looks. Because who could better embody a role than someone who naturally inhabits it? The flipside is that famous beauties often play against type, and they will go to great lengths to not be pigeonholed in the audition process—dying their hair, dressing in-character, or otherwise distorting their natural appearance to appear more suitable for a wider range of roles.
The tradeoff of celebrity has always been that a person loses the solitary claim to their personhood, in exchange for attention and validation from strangers. Most celebrities report a lack of solid identity, especially those who attain fame at an early age. As an Average Jane, I find it comforting and fulfilling to know that looking and feeling my best is enough, without constantly reinventing myself to suit someone else’s thirst for novelty.