How to Start Wearing Your Colors: Anastasiya’s Story

When Anastasiya first came to me five and a half years ago, she opened her closet and found almost none of her colors in it.

She was living in a New York City apartment with a small closet full of fashion statement pieces. She had spent most of her career coaching executives and leading teams in corporate America and banking. We did her palette virtually, during COVID. She didn’t resist it. She looked at her clothes and saw how far they were from her.

That moment is where many women stall. The palette is in their hands, the closet says something else, and the gap feels too big to close.

Anastasiya’s story shows how to start wearing your colors without starting over, one color at a time.

How to Start Wearing Your Colors: Begin With One

The easiest way to start wearing your colors after a color analysis is to choose one color from your personal color palette, wear it consistently for a few months, and let it become familiar before you add the next.

Anastasiya started with her skin tone. It happened to be in the stores that year, and she wore it at home, head to toe, for two or three months.

Outside, the world was full of fear and drama. Inside, something settled. In her words:

“I just felt so good in my skin and safe in my own home.”

— Anastasiya

That’s exactly what your skin tone is for. In my book, Dress Your Essence, I describe it as the color of intimacy, relatedness and fellowship. Wearing it is almost like wearing your own skin. It builds trust, makes you more accessible to others and removes communication barriers. For a woman who had spent years in boardrooms, wearing her own skin tone at home was a way of coming back to herself.

Most people try to start with the boldest color in their palette, because it feels like the most dramatic proof that something changed. I usually suggest the opposite. Start with a color that feels like rest. Once your eye adjusts to seeing yourself in your own coloring, the rest of the palette starts to make sense on its own.

If your closet is far from your colors, start with a single piece in your skin tone: a sweater, a blouse, something you’ll reach for every day. Let it become your new normal before you buy anything else.

Your Hair Color Grounds You, at Home and Anywhere

The next color Anastasiya noticed was missing from her wardrobe was her hair color, a brown.

Her family had moved to a furnished rental in the suburbs, and it didn’t feel like her. Instead of fighting the house, she brought in throws, blankets, mittens, boots, a headband and furs, all in her hair color. The rental started to feel like home.

Your hair color is one of the most grounding colors you own. In your wardrobe, it often shows up in your casual neutrals and especially in your shoes and accessories, which anchor everything else you wear. Anastasiya used the same principle in her surroundings, and it worked the way I’ve seen it work for decades: when the colors around you come from your own coloring, you belong in the room.

I learned this as a little girl, standing in front of the house my mother designed in Hibbing, Minnesota. The brick was a deeper value of her skin. The door was the sage green of her eyes. She had never looked more beautiful to me than she did standing in front of it.

You don’t need to redecorate to feel this. A throw, a pillow or a pair of boots in your hair color is enough to start. If a space feels like someone else’s, bring in your colors before you try to change anything else.

Your Essence Gives Your Colors a Direction

Colors tell you what to wear. Essence tells you why.

During my nine-month program, I gave Anastasiya an essence card with the name Forest Nymph. She kept working with it long after the program ended, and it gave every color choice a story to belong to.

Her graduation outfit put her skin tone together with the lights of her eyes, a rose copper. She said the photo of that outfit showed her essence. The lights of your eyes are the small flecks of color you see when you look closely, and when you hold up a color that truly matches them, there’s a sense of resonance and rightness you can’t deny.

From there, she built different versions of herself, all in her own colors:

• A casual version for volunteering at her daughter’s school
• A romantic, sensual version that’s just for her
• A modern, edgy version that keeps her a New Yorker at heart

She learned to adapt current fashion to her palette, so she stays modern without leaving herself behind. That’s the difference between following fashion and expressing your essence through it. The season’s new pieces become options, filtered through what is already true about you.

If you’re working with your colors and feel stuck, ask what your essence would wear for this specific moment. School drop-off, a quiet evening and a client meeting each deserve a version of you.

When You’re Ready to Lead, Reach for Your Power Colors

Anastasiya didn’t start with her Power Colors. She reached for them when the moment called for it.

As she felt the nudge to change her work, she began wearing them. She told me:

“I was ready to be seen fully, I was ready to be seen as an authority, and I was ready to lead.”

— Anastasiya

Your Power Color conveys leadership, expertise and respect. It heightens your energy and lets you be fully seen. Because it comes from your own coloring, it never overpowers you the way a borrowed “power” outfit can.

Timing matters here. Some women want to jump straight to their Power Colors because they’re the most dramatic. Anastasiya’s path shows another way: settle into the colors that make you feel safe and grounded first, and the Power Colors land differently when you’re ready to step forward. They become an expression of a decision you’ve already made.

Today she coaches women to reach results that match their ambition and build lives that feel true to who they are. Her presence on that path is coherent, because her outside tells the same story as her inside.

If you’re stepping into a bigger role, a new business or a new kind of visibility, notice whether you’re still dressing for the role you left. Your Power Color is often the first sign to others that you’ve moved.

Does a Color Palette Limit Your Wardrobe?

No. Anastasiya’s wardrobe grew in every direction once she knew her colors.

This is the fear I hear most often from women before a session: that a personal color palette will shrink their choices to a handful of safe colors. Her story answers it. She went from a small closet of statement pieces that didn’t reflect her to a wardrobe with a casual side, a romantic side, a modern edge and a set of Power Colors for leading.

Shopping became fun and easy for her. New pieces fit right into the wardrobe foundation we built together, because every color already related to the others.

A palette narrows what you buy, and it widens what you can do with what you own. When every piece shares the same source, your coloring, almost everything works together. That’s why a closet built on your colors often feels larger than one twice its size.

If you’ve been holding back from a color analysis because you’re afraid of losing your style, look at what Anastasiya gained. She kept her New York edge. She added everything else.

What to Do Next

• Choose one color to start. Your skin tone is the gentlest place to begin. Wear it for a few weeks and notice how you feel.
• Add your hair color as a grounding base. Shoes, a bag or a throw in your hair color will anchor everything else.
• Name the moments in your week. Work, family, rest and leadership each deserve a version of you in your colors.
• Save your Power Colors for when you’re ready to step forward. Notice when that moment arrives.

Your first step today: open your closet and find one thing in a color that comes from you. If there isn’t one, that’s your answer about where to begin.

If you don’t know your colors yet, a short conversation with my team is the place to start.

Ready to Be Seen Fully

Anastasiya didn’t change who she was. She started dressing like it, one color at a time, until her closet, her home and her work all told the same story. That’s how to start wearing your colors: gently, from the inside out, until being seen fully feels natural.

The first step is a short conversation about your goals. Book a Call with Jennifer’s Team.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I start wearing my colors after a color analysis? Start with one color from your palette, often your skin tone, and wear it consistently for a few weeks or months. Once it feels familiar, add your hair color as a grounding base, then build out from there.

Do I have to replace my whole wardrobe after a color analysis? No. Most women add their colors gradually, one piece at a time. New pieces fit into the foundation as you go, and shopping gets easier because everything relates to everything else.

Will a color palette limit my style? In my experience, it does the opposite. When every color comes from your own coloring, almost everything in your closet works together, and you can build casual, romantic and professional versions of yourself from the same palette.

When should I wear my Power Colors? Wear your Power Colors when you want to be seen as an authority and a leader: a keynote, a big meeting or a new role. Many women find they land best once they’ve settled into the rest of their palette.