neutrals are safe. color is scary.
why I wore neutrals for years and how I started the slow evolution towards color
(this post is too long for email, so make sure to click through to read, and if you liked the post, give me a ❤️ while you’re there!)
For much of my life, I’ve been a neutrals person. They felt easy. They felt safe. And for a long time, they genuinely felt like me.
I can trace this preference back to high school, when I thought the most sophisticated thing a person could wear was a black top with jeans. I even made a New Year’s resolution once to wear more black (seriously, I really did). I loved the simplicity of it, the way I could never feel wrong in it.
There were moments when I tried to add color. In college, I bought a pair of green suede loafers (mostly because they were on clearance, why else would I buy green suede loafers?) wore them once to the campus library, and never wore them again. I also bought a red top because women’s magazines told me I should wear red (brown hair, brown eyes, etc). I got a lot of compliments, but I didn’t like it on me. Both the green shoes and the red shirt felt like blaring traffic lights calling attention to me.
In my twenties, I experimented wildly with thrifted clothing—bold prints, interesting silhouettes, things that probably didn't make sense. But I eventually got tired of second-guessing my outfits. I didn’t want to have to work so hard and still feel self-conscious when I was out with friends, wondering if what I had on actually worked. So, I returned to the safety of neutrals.
In my thirties, I had big jobs, a house renovation, a wedding, started my business, and became a mom and a wardrobe made up of neutrals was exactly what I needed. It all went together, and it required very little thought. I just wanted to get dressed in a way that felt stylish without having to put too much thought and energy into it. Color makes me feel more visible, which as an introvert, is not always comfortable, and being visible requires more energy, something I was in short supply of.
In 2020, I started saving images with color on a Pinterest board I called “new inspiration,” but I quickly abandoned the idea when the pandemic hit. Life got hard again, and I wanted everything to be as simple as possible. Between the pandemic and perimenopause, my body changed, and I wanted to feel safe in my clothes. That meant wearing things that showed less of the shape of my body, more dark colors, fewer defined waists, fewer tucked in tops.
However, over time, something shifted.
I’m older. My kids can buckle themselves into the car and don’t need me in the bathroom. I’ve figured out ways to put systems in place to streamline my business. I’ve adjusted to my new size. My life is less stressful, and I have more brain and energy capacity to expand and explore. I feel more confident in who I am. I’ve built a community of people who know me well enough that I no longer feel pressure to show up a certain way.
As these developments took place, color started catching my eye in a way it hadn’t before. Images with specific colors, especially in certain saturations and combinations, made my eyes literally widen. I felt drawn to them, even though they made me nervous.
When I look at my Pinterest boards, I can see the progression. Fall 2023 was almost entirely neutrals. Spring 2024? Full of color, but still sprinkled with familiar, neutral outfits. By Fall 2024, if you scroll to the bottom of the board, you can see I started with all neutrals (I always start each season’s board by repinning some outfits I liked from the previous year), but eventually, the whole board became colorful.
While my Pinterest boards had a lot of color, I didn’t actually have any in my real life closet. In the spring of 2024,
, , and I created the Unflattering Style Challenge.
One of the prompts was to wear something that made you uncomfortable. I chose to wear a red top one day. People loved it. They told me color looked great on me, but I still felt resistant.
why do I have such a hard time with color?
Welcome to a special week of outfits! As you may know, I’ve collaborated with Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay to create a style challenge. It’s only a challenge in the loosest sense of the word, because what we’re trying to do is create an awareness of the style rules that live rent free in our heads, figure out our safe outfits, and then bring it all together.
However, that’s also when I realized this sort of exposure therapy really works. The more I wore color, the less uncomfortable it felt. One of the first colorful things I bought that really stuck was a pair of red EVA Birkenstocks. I can’t overstate what a game-changer they were. Suddenly, I could wear pretty much anything neutral, throw on the Birks, and it felt like I’d done something interesting. By summer, I was wearing purple bike shorts, a blue striped top, and the red Birks without a second thought. And this summer I wore the same red top I was so scared of last year and with mint green shoes, no less!
Adding color has been a long, slow process (see: Tziporah Salamon from Advanced Style re: dressing as an art form). Clearly, I gathered inspiration for a long time. I used that inspiration to look for items. I pinned anything I seriously considered buying to my Pinterest wish list to see how it all might fit together.
Since this was all experimental (I didn’t actually know if I’d *like* wearing this much color even if I was drawn to it visually), I mostly shopped secondhand, in thrift stores, on Poshmark, and on eBay.
Planning a wardrobe with color requires so much more thought than one with neutrals. With each item, I have to work much harder to make sure that I could make enough outfits with what I already had. Previously, if I had doubts about how to style something, I knew I could typically pair it with a white or black top and/or denim, and I’d be good to go. But that doesn’t always work with color or crazy prints.
In addition to the extra wardrobe planning and outfit styling, as mentioned above, it takes more emotional bandwidth and willingness to be visible and manage the attention that might come from that. Sometimes, it’s just too much. On those days, I give myself permission to go back to neutrals. When I travel, I’ll probably do that as well, it’s just easier to pack. And sometimes, when I wear all neutrals, I miss the energy that color brings.
My comfort with who I am and my current body has allowed me to be ok with being a bit more visible. I’m less concerned with what others think and with doing things perfectly or making mistakes, which kept me in my neutral box. And the fact that I’m craving color during one of the darkest times in our country is not lost on me.
Adding color to my wardrobe has been about so much more than clothes. It’s been about trusting myself, making room for change, and realizing I don’t have to stay the same to stay true to who I am.
I’m still figuring it out. Some days I want to be seen; some days I don’t. Some days color feels like joy; some days it feels like too much. And all of that is okay. I don’t have to pick one or the other. I can move back and forth as life, energy, and seasons change. Style doesn’t have to be a fixed identity.
Other great Substack posts on this topic are:
on finding inspiration from female artists who sought joy in difficult times: on how sad beige can be a way of othering more colorful cultures:
And
on loving all black but similarly, craving that bit of color:
Do you wear much color? Has that always been the case?
". . . I don't have to stay the same to stay true to who I am." Wow. Thank you for putting that into words for me.
(those of you who know me already know my answer...)
All the color please all the time! Pink is a neutral. Teal is a necessity. Red is a basic. Deep espresso is acceptable, beige does not exist. Bring me flower prints please, and pops of yellow and turquoise and olive and magenta.
I have worn to shabby decrepitude green clogs, pink flats, green flats, turquoise sandals, red mary janes, yellow suede clogs, and shoes of many other colors. Purple suede heels were saved from this fate only because I don't wear heels very often.
Seasonability is also very important to me. I hate wearing harvest gold or olive in spring; I feel cold if I wear light colors in winter; I dislike wearing burgundy or forest green or black in summer heat.
Recently though I have found myself dreaming about a less vivid selection. I do not think I will ever lose my love of color, I simply can't help myself. But I also adore the texture and feel of natural flax, and I've been dreaming of some big billowy blouses in that neutral natural color. Who knows! I may go through a phase that is mostly neutrals with one color accent, rather than my current all colors everywhere approach.