THE IMPACT OF COLOR

Color is one of the most effective ways to say to the world, “Hey, look at me.” While it would be gauche indeed to walk into a room and command attention in such an obvious way, you can accomplish the same results more subtlety when you wear colors that reflect your personal coloring. Just as great artists have a favored palette of colors they work with repeatedly, each person has a unique combination of skin, hair, and eye colors that make up their personal color palette.

Building your wardrobe around these colors will literally make you more visible.

Image coach Nicole Mertes describes color as a “tool of attraction”. The following exercise will help illustrate this point. Relax for a moment and imagine you are driving along a country road. As you are driving along the road you meet a shiny red sports car. Notice your response when you see the car.

Next, imagine that a little further on you round a corner and see before you a field of blue lupine in full bloom. What is your response to the field of lupine? Even if you haven’t been dreaming about buying a red sports car and even if lupine isn’t your favorite flower, your attention would surely have been captured by the unexpected encounter with this vivid color.

Color also attracts our attention through repetition. In the same way that repeating a thought or phrase adds rhetorical emphasis, repeating colors from your personal palette in the clothing you wear, adds visual emphasis. It is the easy, effective, and most powerful way to literally make yourself more visible.

Once color has gotten our attention it continues to influence our perceptions. Color can actually help sharpen the focus of our attention. In much the same way adjusting the lens of a camera brings a photograph into focus, adjusting the colors you wear can bring your image into clearer focus.

When you wear colors that are in harmony with your personal palette you become more memorable. People have an easier time seeing you and an easier time hearing what you have to say. Your ability to bring your gifts and talents into the world is heightened.