If your goal is to design a custom wardrobe that flatters you, it doesn’t make sense to just buy someone else’s. We come in different colors, shapes, and sizes; our clothes should as well. It should be no surprise then that I don’t think everyone needs white T-shirts or button-ups in their wardrobe. But having some version of the standard white tee (and maybe a button-up and a cami), in a flattering color and style for you, does probably make sense for a lot of us. These are great options when you’re looking for a basic, light-colored piece to help build an outfit.
Tips, Tricks & Tools
Luckily, I have an simple way to find my version of white that I’ve used to buy tees and other light-colored basics for my wardrobe. Here’s the secret: I just look for a much lighter version of my skin color. This can be hard to do when you’re trying to eyeball the comparison, but I have a few tricks that can help.
The easiest way is by using the COLYR app along with a color measurement device called a colorimeter. Once my skin color was loaded into the app, I just needed to scan something that looks white. A piece of printer paper works great. Then the app let me know that it wasn’t a good match and gave me options that would work better for me. The second set of swatches down–the lightness matches–are what you’re looking for. Those colors are much lighter than my skin and hair colors, but in the right hue and chroma to harmonize with them.
If that’s lighter than you want to go, all you need to do is scan something just a little bit darker.
There are a couple of other ways you could try to get to the same place. The Kolormondo is one option, though it would provide more of a rough estimation. If you’re not familiar, it’s a globe that’s pieced together to help visualize the concepts of hue, value, and chroma. But because only a small number of colors are shown, you’re going to end up in a much bigger ballpark than I’m personally comfortable with.
Another option is to take a photo in good lighting and load it into color-picker software (like this: https://imagecolorpicker.com/). If you can grab a pretty accurate color, then you could load it into a color converter. (I’ve used this one in the past: https://convertingcolors.com/cielch-color-41_0.000_332.655.html?search=CIELCh(41,%200,%20332.655) Convert the color to LCh and adjust the lightness (the “L” value) down closer to zero.
MARCO…
The next step is actually finding clothes in these colors. I’ve personally purchased several good color options offered by Everlane. But will they work for you? It depends. (And this is why I’d make a better lawyer than an influencer, but since I’m not being sponsored by anyone it doesn’t really matter). My closet includes items in colors they call hazelnut, cappuccino, toasted coconut, caramel, and iced coffee. They’re all actually various versions of orange with slight differences in lightness, where they fall in the orange spectrum (closer to red or yellow), and greyness. Wherever you shop, try searching by color for brown, tan, or maybe even pink.
They might not be the most exciting part of your wardrobe, but getting these basics right makes a huge difference in how functional your closet is.