The 4 Seasons Theory: Find the Color that Suits you Best

Are you spring, summer, fall or winter? Based on the theories of colorimetry developed in the 20th century, this fashionable method promises to establish the colors that enhance your skin tone.

Colors are not only a matter of taste. Since the end of the 19th century, they have been the subject of theoretical studies called colorimetry. Although old, this science of color matching is making a comeback on TikTok, where the hashtag #colorimetry peaks at 16.8 million views. Influencers presenting themselves as color analysts, like Magnifisenses, accumulate thousands or even hundreds of thousands of followers. They thus revive a phenomenon born in the 1930s at the famous Bauhaus art and design school with the painter Johannes Itten. A pioneer of the discipline, this art teacher structured the tones into a color circle. He paved the way for many thinkers of colorimetry, which quickly went beyond the realm of art to the art of living.

Warm and cold

Indeed, a decade later, the American artist Robert Dorr established with his system "Key Color" that there are skin tones with warm undertones (containing yellow, gold) and other cold (containing blue, and more pink). He thus deduced that colors can be in agreement or in disagreement with certain physical. In his wake, the American Suzanne Caygill, image consultant, develops in turn these correspondences of colors in the form of the theory of the four seasons, published in 1980 in his manifesto on the harmony of colors The Essence of You. And it's this nomenclature that is on the rise.

Relooking and image consulting

By focusing on skin tone, hair and eyes, Suzanne Caygill establishes four main groups of tones. The "spring" people with fresh colors, the "summer" with soft tones, the "autumn" with a more flamboyant palette and, finally, the "winter" type with pale and contrasted tones. At the end of the 20th century, with the rise of makeover and image consulting, the four seasons method reached its limits. It was expanded by Patrick and Judith Halpin, who developed the directional method. This method refines the seasonal profiles according to new criteria. To the color temperature, we add its clarity and brightness. The result is twelve more precise seasons to identify with.

How to calculate my colorimetry 

Venetian red hair, coffee complexion, hazel eyes... Colorimetry is accompanied by a particularly flowery vocabulary of colors that it is sometimes difficult to relate to one's own physical characteristics. Fortunately, there is a battery of tests to know which category to refer to. First of all, the white sheet test. This test consists in bringing an immaculate sheet of paper close to your face, to judge if, in comparison, your skin looks bright (this is the case for cold complexions known as "winter" or "summer"), yellowish (for warm complexions, namely "spring" and "autumn") or neutral.

Using the same principle, but with different colored scarves, draping allows you to see which tones enhance the complexion or the eyes. The same with metal, gold or silver. Filters, such as Armocromia on TikTok, offer a similar experience, digitized this time. The color analysis is also a service offered by many relookers and image consultants, who use this methodology to their advantage.

Some people do not hesitate to present colorimetry as a master standard, an infallible way to know how to look good through clothes or hair coloring. Among image professionals, others contest it, reproaching it for being too dogmatic, even false. Empirical experience or exact science? It's all about nuances... To your palettes.