Hey, New Yorkers! What color are you wearing right now? Nymag.com’s entire fashion department, including Amy Odell, Sharon Clott, Amina Akhtar, and Diana Tsui are all wearing black. When asked over IM to be sure they were wearing black, all replied something like, “Yes. Like always. Do you have to ask?” But according to the Daily Mail, we are sitting here in our cubes probably looking like old bags. Your color selection might be making you look like an old bag, too. Expert color consultants, whatever those are, say only one in five people has the proper skin tone to pull off black clothing. For the other four in five, black clothes emphasize bags under the eyes, make wrinkles look darker and deeper, and can even create the appearance of fissures or dark spots in irises.
The effect can be lessened by wearing a low-cut black top. But if you put your black scarf and black coat on at the end of the day, you’ll walk outside looking like an old, sunken-faced, wrinkly bag with spotted eyes again. Colorist Jules Standish says, “The effect can be as serious as making women feel drained, self-conscious, and introverted.” And you thought that was just an effect of the miserably cold winter, or being back to work after a nice long vacation. But no — it’s your black clothes.
Standish says Nigella Lawson has the skin tone to pull off black, while Peaches Geldof does not. Warm skin tones are problematic. But no matter what these color “experts” say, we do not plan to wear any less black despite how old and sickly it may (not) be making us look. What are we supposed to do? Go around New York in the thick of winter wearing color and looking cheerful? That would just be silly.
Black clothes can put years on you: The unwanted side-effect of fashion’s favourite colour [Daily Mail UK]
