Style Personalities are not the same as Colour Personalities.
I received an email from Blanchwina, who completed my colour analysis course some time ago:
Hi Kim. Just been reading all about the personal style course: I’m intrigued so thought I’d drop you a quick line. Are clients’ personalities assessed based on personality questionnaires that you tend to come across in psychology-related fields? If so, and you come across someone who wishes to portray something a little, or even wildly, different to their inner self, would this come across in their answers given? Or, is it nothing to do with questionnaires? Blanchwina, USA
Dear Blanchwina, Style personalities are not the same as colour personalities…
Colour personality
The colour personalities – Spring-linked, Summer-linked, and so on, are based on psychological profiling methods taken directly from Carl Jung, Myers-Briggs and Keirsey. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions.
If you’re really interested, then read ‘Gifts Differing’ by Isabel Briggs Myers. Her description of the difference between introverts and extraverts totally saved me from impending brain failure and helped me understand my own personality!
Style personality
Style personality is totally from the world of image and colour, although before Scott Cornwall sends me a grumpy email, I need to include the world of hair here too! There are loads of different approaches around and I have used virtually all of them over the years. At one time, we had about 73,000. Well, it certainly seemed like it at the time!
The problem is that the more ‘types’ there are, the more chance your client’s eyes will glaze over as you blether on describing each one.
I’ve learned the hard way.
Keep it simple.
So I’ve narrowed it down to 6 style personalities that seem to work for the current era:
- Natural
- Classic
- Romantic
- Dramatic
- Creative
- and European
I’ve also added two extra ones in my personal style course, just to keep you on your toes! But you know me, these titles or names are not written in concrete so you can call them whatever you want. After all, this is YOUR image business, not mine!
How to use style personality
These different personality types can be used to help a lady express more of her own personality through her clothes, accessories, hairstyle, jewellery, make-up, etc. and / or to help a lady express something she’s not when required; this is particularly useful when:
- Showing people how to dress for interviews- very much needed right now in this harsh economic climate – so that they get the job before they even open their mouth. Unfortunately some of our darling clients blow it the moment they DO open their mouth but you could decide to include presentation and etiquette advice in your portfolio of services – or perhaps not?
- Showing a Dramatic how to dress down to watch a school football match in a muddy field, perhaps? It is seemingly impossible for a full-blown Dramatic like Cher to dress down but it can definitely be done!
- Showing a Natural how to dress for a dinner party when she’d rather eat coal than dress up!
- and loads of other variations on this theme…
Can you imagine a total Dramatic dressing down at all?
How to diagnose your client’s style personality
On my personal style course I demonstrate several different ways of deciding a lady’s style personality so that you, the consultant, can choose which one(s) you want to use in your own business and, yes, a quiz is just one way of doing that. The quiz, together with the other 4 different ways of diagnosing your client’s style personality, is included in the personal style course.