Believe it or not…Colors are non-verbal communication. They create both a physical and emotional reaction.
Understanding what they mean and how they interact is important in order to set the right tone and evoke the desired response to and from others.
I found this information fascinating as it ultimately can help you decide what to wear, depending on where you are going:
- Cool Color: They tend to have a calming effect. At one end of the spectrum they are cold, impersonal. At the other end the cool colors are comforting and nurturing. Blue, green, and the neutrals white, gray, and silver are examples of cool colors.
When to wear? To an interview or if you are hiring someone. If you are in sales, around your customers.
- Warm Color: They convey emotions from simple optimism to strong violence. The warmth of red, yellow, pink, or orange can create excitement but it can also create anger.
When to wear? To a networking event, a speaking engagement, a party or a date. Never when you are firing someone or evaluating an employee’s performance.
- Mixing Warm and Cool Color: Colors with attributes from both the warm and cool colors can calm and excite. These are colors derived from a mix of a cool and warm color such as blue and red or blue and yellow. Typically considered cool, green is really more of a mixed warm and cool color.
When to wear? When meeting someone new, when you’re playing it ‘safe’.
- Neutral Color: These help to put the focus on other colors or serve to tone down colors that might otherwise be overpowering on their own. To some extent blacks, browns, tans, golds, and beige colors are considered warm. While white, ivory, silver, and gray are somewhat cooler colors. Yet these warm and cool attributes are flexible and more subtle than that of reds or blues.
When to wear? To a networking event, a meeting with your board, when you aren’t feeling so hot about your body.
So, which color will you decide to wear today?
