Color Your Style: How to Wear Your True Colors Paperback – January 25, 2011

Excellent, easy to learn and follow style book. Unique approach to finding your authentic style.

I have owned this book on digital for years since about the first month I had my kindle (1st gen). However, I recently was very lucky to go get to see David Zyla for a Color Consult and Ultimate Style Session so I picked it up with the hopes of getting it autographed. Mission accomplished! I had a friend along for the trip to the consult in Seattle that had never heard of Zyla and she devoured the book on the car ride and during the hotel stay. It was fascinating. Zyla has such a following that our big facebook group which tons of members in Seattle met at The Renaissance Hotel and had a meetup to discuss their appointments and the results of their consults. Now what does this have to do with his book? Everything. In this book David Zyla breaks down his color system and helps you discover your color palette and then helps you find your season and archetype. He then breaks down your palette into various categories that help you with day to day themed wardrobes. This book is fantastic and of all the color seasonal systems out there, Zyla is by far the best.I highly recommend this book. What I recommend more is going to see Zyla in person.

This book is much more detailed than the original "what's your color" book in terms of breaking down the seasons and related colors. And the color philosophy looks at colors each type should wear for casual, business, romance, etc. Gets into the personality of each color type as well. And the bottom line is that the recommendations work.This is not a quick process (gee, my eyes are green and my hair is auburn so I must be an autumn and can wear these 16 colors). If you want to get the most out of this book, I recommend reading it twice (the second time you can skip parts you know do not pertain to you). You should also try to have a second person help you when it comes to identifying all the different colors/shades in your iris and your skin tone.I took quite a bit of time studying and trying out colors, then pared the yellow, orange and most of the green from my wardrobe. I kept one or two of those pieces because I love them and can wear a scarf or jacket in one of my "real" colors, so it works out.My new black is dark blue-gray and my new white is pale pink. I think it was a good investment. Now people tend to say "You look great" instead of "That is a great sweater."

the concept is interesting, if you can figure out YOUR colors. Some of the descriptions of what your true colors should be are not quite clear and the book lacks any illustrations for this. For example: your dramatic color - i.e. color of your veins. Do you take into consideration the fact that actual vein color obscured by the skin on top of it, lol? if yes, then it won't be that dramatic after all. Again, no photos to give an example. I tried a few color options to include all possibilities and remained confused about it. Same goes for the romantic color - my flushed cheeks' pink and pink on the tip of my pinched fingertip are two different things and they also change due to the air temperature. Or your essence color - what if I tan? will my essence color change then? Or what if color of my iris has actually 5 different shades in it and they also change depending on my mood, temperature and lighting conditions? Again, lacks examples and photos. I even watched some of his videos on youtube but we also all have different monitor resolution and screens that adjust brightness based on the light around it. So, I'd say the idea might be interesting, but it is a very questionable method and left me feeling as confused as the infamous "seasonal palette" method.

You can tell a color analyst is good at their job if they themselves look good. Many times I have seen color analysts who look a hot mess, making me wonder: just how skillful are they at what they do? David Zyla is very fetching in his promotion photos, wearing a combination of tangerine and blue which I doubt anyone else in the world could wear but which look amazing on him.And his color analysis technique is amazing, too. Being somewhat obsessed with this topic, I seem to have taken dozens of personal color analysis (PCA) tests, always coming away feeling like it wasn't working. I believed in the process enough to know that I was not a warm season, but winter was too strong, and summer seemed too wishy-washy. As I consider myself a bold personality, I went with winter, but I never really felt satisfied with it.I actually came across David's book via Pinterest, when I was once again comparing winter and summer palettes to see which one really worked for me. In the process I read about something called "Zyla sunset summer/elegant bohemian," and I liked those terms so much, I decided to look up what this meant. A Google search soon brought me to this book.Well for the first time I feel happy and confident in my summer season! It is far better to know one is an "elegant bohemian" summer than some generic plain Jane summer (which is how summers are so often described by color analysts, many of whom are winters--could that be the reason?). It makes soooo much sense to me, since even back when I was a kid I would dress up in flowy scarves and flowy skirts. Even now I tend toward hippy skirts and iridescent scarves. But it makes it so much easier to know my "archetype."Even more importantly though is David's technique in identifying one's best colors. Since he has you use your actual skin tones, it makes perfect sense, and my best colors truly are the ones I have always tended to gravitate toward without really knowing why. Now I do.Seriously this may sound dumb but I am so happy about my analysis I could cry. I feel as though I have found my true self at last. David thank you so so so much! You truly have a gift.