Little Homeschool Blessings: Homeschool Fashion Study: What Season Are You?

There are so many ways to honor God in how we dress. The clothing we wear is a reflection of our attitudes about ourselves and our relationship with God. We want the clothes we wear, just like how we behave, to be a reflection of that light within us. Since the light of God is in our eyes, our goal is for our clothes not to distract others from our eyes.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

Psalm 118:1

Not only can we detract others from our eyes by what we wear, but we can distract ourselves by wearing clothing and colors that make us uncomfortable. Comfort is key in our ability to focus on how we are shining our light. We have always picked clothes for the girls that are of a certain length and have coverage, even bathing suits, but how we dress is about more than length and coverage. The colors we wear can make us uncomfortable as well.

There are four basic seasons (but even within those, there are divisions to be found and nothing is absolute). The four seasons are winter, spring, summer, and autumn. You can use your skin coloring, hair color, and eye color to help determine what shades of what colors look best on you. Almost everyone can wear every color, just not every shade (although I have not found a yellow that I can pull off, unless you count cream).

Generally someone with a winter complexion and color gives the illusion of Snow White (think strikingly black hair and light eyes), those with an Asian ethnicity, Native American, or African ancestry. Winters usually have pink or blue undertones and their veins look blue underneath their skin. Navy, gray, deep reds, jewel tones, and icy colors work with this skin tone.

Ceesa is spring. She has golden blonde hair and blue steely gray eyes. She has yellow undertones and her veins look green. This is also the place for those with light caramel skin, soft brown hair and eyes. Springs look good in pale shades, ivory, peach, red, blue, aqua and bright greens.

Summers usually are light blondes (no gold undertones) with light blue, gray, or green eyes or women of color with light colored eyes. They have pink or blue undertones and blue veins. Pastels, neutrals, mauve, and rose fit summers.

Autumn complexions generally have brownish or auburn hair and hazel or brown eyes (there is some variation). Jo-Jo and I are Autumns. We have yellow undertones and our veins look green. I look good in reds ranging from burgundy to bright, dark purple, rust, light grey, medium lavender, dark grey, mauve, light blue, terra cotta orange, forest greens, teal, aqua, rich brown, golden tones, coral, and ivory.

It is important to remember that these are merely guides for color. Everybody is different and some colors that may be in your color palette may not really be very comfortable on. I have a cousin (once removed) that really only likes to wear shades of pink. She is a summer, but no other color gives her as much energy. I have seen several autumn color charts that have yellows listed. But as I mentioned above, I can't do yellow. I don't like how I feel in it and I don't like how I look. Autumns also are not supposed to look great in blacks and whites and I frequently receive compliments in both colors. the same goes for Ceesa and springs aren't really supposed to stand out in black and white either.

When I was in middle school, one of my classmates had a few of us over for an afternoon. A make-up consultant was there and she had a large range of scarves in lots of different colors. She helped us learn what season we were and we had lots of fun trying make-up shades and eating snacks. That's been many, many years ago, but it has only been within the last decade that I have paid much attention to what colors I look good in and feel great wearing.

And now the fashion show...

I love the colors of this outfit. The teal and cream scarf are a nice combination. Although looking at this sweater, I'm thinking it might be time to pass it down to Ceesa. She would look great in this and the length would be just right on her.

I took this picture before I got my new pair of skinny jeans. This outfit would look so much better with those jeans and my cognac boots. I wore this to the girls' cast part (where I sat in the corner and watched them play games). I wore it with a pair of booties (I couldn't get myself to cuff the pants. I know that is a style now I just can't do it.).

Ceesa is wearing a church outfit that would look nice for a birthday party as well.

This is another in that collection of long dresses that we fell in love with and bought a few in short and long sleeves. She paired it with a grey cardigan and light blue silk scarf.

Jo-Jo loves wearing my scarves. And this is one you've seen me wear lots of times.

The purple and blue look really nice together for winter. Jo-Jo can wear this for a school event with other families, her girls group, and an evening youth event or Bible study.

Portfolio Assignment: You can use any clothes in your home (doesn't matter who's closet) to determine shades that look good for your complexion and that you feel comfortable wearing. Hold the garment up to your face under your chin and look in a mirror or have someone take your picture. This works really well with scarves. Make a list of the colors that look great on you. You can take pictures and include them in your portfolio or put a picture of yourself in the center and put colors around the edges. You could also take a trip to a store and hold up garments or try on scarves and take pictures to compare when you get home.