Color Personalities

How do the consultants to the rich & famous zone in on their clients color personalities?

Tom Scheerer looks at the wardrobe and the closet for clues to their color affinity. Once their favorite color is identified Tom chooses a complementary color, to keep the color scheme from being too obvious. A color wheel is a good tool, so he can cull the opposiste color and build out their colored space from there.

Alessandra Branca sends her clients off to museums. Their environment is their living art. She encourages them to look for feelings of balance, flow and happiness in these public spaces and report back to her so she can start to build their color preferences into the space she is decorating for them.

Phobe Howard starts with portfolios, divided into neutrals and colors. If that leaves the clients still unsure of color, she has them sort through bundles of fabrics in various colors. If they are still feeling color shy, she walks them through a retail space touching colors and saying, "like", "don't like" until they've figured out ther color preferences..

Here are some questions to ask yourself when thinking about color from House Beautiful. We answered most of them just for fun.

What color would you like to try, but are scared to? (Red! Jenna says she isn't scared of colors, some she just doesn't like)
What color makes you grind your teeth? (Jenna and I agree on neon colors)
What color calms you? (peach, Jenna says a zen-like green)
What color brings you down? (I'd say black, Jim says medium grey, Jenna says black or combinations of black and red)
What color makes you happiest? (Aqua makes me happiest, Jenna says sunset colors, Jim says turquoise)
What is your favorite flower? (Mine is peach colored rose, Jenna's is a tiger-lily)
What's your favorite gemstone? (Mine is a diamond...so...silver? Jenna's is a black pearl which is more grey and isn't a gem stone at all)
What color was your prom dress? (I didn't go! I wore an aqua blue dress to several weddings though. Jenna's was black, but not your basic black. Think I dream of Jeanne in black and rhinestones...kind of)
What color is your car? (Mine is forest green, Michael's bronze, Paul's is blue, Jenna's and Jim's silver)
What color was your favorite crayon as a child? (Mine was red or purple because I didn't get to wear those colors much! Jenna's were pink, blue and purple- all pastel colors she hates now, Trista always reached for red)
What color are your sheets? (Mine are off white, Jenna's are dark orange, Jim's teal blue)
What color was your bedroom when you were growing up? (Jenna and Trista had a jungle mural on the wall)
What color is your lipstick? (We wear chapstick...so very little color at all!)
What color gets you the most compliments? (Mine is navy blue, Jenna says colors she hates like pink)
What color do you wear when you want to feel pretty? (I wear soft blue, Jenna likes a dusty rose but doesn't actually own anything that color, Jim always feels pretty)
What color do you never wear? (Yellow! Jenna won't wear easter egg colors.)
What color do you wear the most? (Jenna, Michael and I all wear a lot of brown, beige, green, grey and blue, Jim wears black and blue jeans exclusively :)
What color are your eyes? (Mine are a deep blue like ultra-marine, Jenna's a grey-blue outlined in navy, Jim's are blue with other shades of grey and flecks of lighter blue, Trista's are blueish/greenish with yellow which makes them appear more green.)


-Kathryn