The SECRET to unlocking your style with colour with Kate Harrison

talk in wardrobe

Host Ellis Ranson sits down with UK colour therapist Kate Harrison to explore the psychological and energetic impact of colour on our well-b

Key takeaways

• Kate Harrison explains that colours like red and orange are lower frequency and can be energising, whereas higher frequencies like blue and violet are more calming.
• The color blue is psychologically associated with truth and dependability, which is why it is utilized by organizations like the NHS.

Main topics

• Psychology of colour
• Chromotherapy and energy frequencies

Notable quotes

Dress for the day that you want rather than the day that you wake up to.

Conclusion

Listeners will gain a new perspective on their wardrobe as a tool for

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:04) I'm Ennis Ranson and welcome to Talkin' Wardrobe. Before we get into today's episode, please do hit that subscribe button as it really helps the show grow and brings you more fun fashion chats. Now let's get into it. Joining me in the wardrobe today is the UK's leading colour therapist, Kate Harrison. In this episode, we explore the power of colour and the impact it can have on how we feel, how we show up and also some tips from Kate on how we can get more colour into our wardrobes. So tell Speaker 1 (0:32) us, what are you wearing? Bit of a mixture today, because obviously... I'm never able to wear just like full on black and grey and beige. Speaker 2 (0:42) That's the rules or your Speaker 1 (0:43) own rules? That's my own rules because I have to turn up with something slightly different. So when I knew I was coming to see you today, I was like, what am I going to go with? What colour? And I went with yellow. I love yellow. So yellow is all about like clarity of thought. So it really is kind of like a slightly higher vibrating frequency. It's super interesting. But basically, it's all about independence, clarity of thought. Yellow is one of those colours that you see someone coming in. yellow um so top is french connection which i just absolutely love you can't get any better than just a classic shirt can you no Speaker 2 (1:14) and i love the fact it's like a yellow stripe i feel like it feels quite different butter Speaker 1 (1:19) yellow as well we're a bit obsessed we Speaker 2 (1:21) are buttering Speaker 1 (1:22) it up that yellow and the trousers my own brand actually Dopamine dressing room. Yeah, I know. She's repping. So I'm repping. I'm repping the brand. But yeah, just nice, big, wide leg, pleats down the front. I love that. I love that kind of look. Like my style's quite classic. So that's why I'm wearing jigsaw shoes. They're great. Speaker 2 (1:39) So what I am enjoying immediately looking at your outfit is that we're mixing gold and silver because I am such a mixer. Speaker 1 (1:47) Yeah, I love that. And you're Speaker 2 (1:48) in charge of colour and if you're signing it off. Do you know what? Then all the Speaker 1 (1:52) haters can... Speaker 2 (1:53) Absolutely. Speaker 1 (1:53) You know what? I'm about dressing for joy. Yes. I hate rules, Speaker 2 (1:57) to be fair. I really don't like rules. I've always said that. Speaker 1 (1:59) And it's what I really struggled with when I first trained in colour 25 years ago. It was a long, long time ago. There were loads of rules. And I'm just not a rules girl. I love breaking them. Speaker 2 (2:09) I do. And I actually think there should be... You can have your own rules, your own fashion rules, but I don't think they should be universal. Speaker 1 (2:15) No, I think it's about what feels good to you. Exactly. And that's different for me. That's different for you. That's different for everyone. And you'll be like that with clients. You'll have some clients you've made for rail and they didn't like that. But actually, that's going to look amazing on someone else. And that's what it's about, isn't it? So true. But I think you kind of got to know yourself. You've got to be pretty confident in who you are to then make those decisions. Speaker 2 (2:32) So speaking, so 25 years ago was when you started this career. Can you take us back to how that happened? Like what sparked your joy or interest in colour? Speaker 1 (2:42) Yeah. What did, to be honest? Well, I'd always worked in shops, right? So I'd done a retail marketing degree in Manchester. And at that time, it was 90s, right? So sort of late 90s. We were in the era of Posh and Becks living down the road from me. Speaker 2 (2:59) Oh, my God. They were the clients Speaker 1 (3:01) in Armani. So I worked in Armani and then I worked for Flannels, designer retailer in Manchester. And then I worked for Selfridges. So I loved, I thought I loved the clothes. which was amazing. Then I finished my degree and then I went into the world of aluminium. And I was like, what is this? Because I'd done a marketing degree and they offered me a job and it had a car. And I was like, oh, wow, I'm going to get a company car. So I'm going to go into this because it's marketing. But I really missed the girly side of it. And I thought I missed the clothes. So I kind of started looking around at what I could do, you know, kind of how you could get into this sort of stuff. And Manchester in the late 90s, there was no... there were no styling courses. Like literally I had to come down to London, moved in with my auntie who lived in Notting Hill at the time and did a styling course down here. But again, like now there's loads of different courses available to be a stylist or you've got like London College of Fashion and all this sort of stuff. Is that your background, London College of Fashion? I Speaker 2 (3:58) went to the Fashion Retail Academy, but there Speaker 1 (4:00) was no styling course. No, it didn't exist. And I'm like, well, what is this? So my course originally was like an... image consultant course and I was like wow this is a lot so it consisted of probably about 75,000 drapes different colored drapes okay when I rocked up there I was a little bit in my Christina Aguilera dirty phase oh right I didn't wear the chaps not for the first day anyway but I certainly had that amount of false tan on there was a lot of false tan a lot of Very bleached blonde hair. There was no crimp, but it was certainly very, very peroxide blonde. And very tight Miss 60 jeans, big studded belt. I thought I knew it all. Miss Speaker 2 (4:43) 60's having such a comeback. You see, I'm back in fashion. Speaker 1 (4:47) I'm back, to be fair. That girl is back. And I went down there and this lady who was much older than me, kind of twin set and pearls, looked me up and down and just said, you need to go home, take that false tan off and we'll start again tomorrow. And I was like, oh, wow. And I thought I knew something. So I thought, God, I'm so out of my depth here. So I did that, scraped my false tan off. You know, it took me like hours and hours. There was sun shimmer on top of God knows what else. Oh God, yeah, it was awful, absolutely awful. Anyway, I went back and she kind of transformed my world right in front of my eyes because what she showed me was that actually I'd been... colouring myself in to suit colours that I liked and actually if I was wearing colours that actually were a natural extension of my own colourings then I didn't need all the bump with it you know it used to take me ages to get ready you know I'd be false tanning every other day you know but all of a sudden that became quite minimal once I understood this colour thing and I was like wow this is really quite life-changing so I could see the impact it could have even on me who knew something about Fashion who'd been working in retail, who'd worked with different designers and stuff. So I went back up to Manchester with all my newfound London style knowledge and set up a styling company. So it was called Code. We had a, I got a business partner. She was also an image consultant. I said, I've got this kind of idea that I don't want to do this in a traditional sense. I just want to style real women and make them feel really good. Because what I found was it wasn't about the clothes. It was about the women. And it was actually about the clothes were just the tools. It was actually the people that I loved, not necessarily the clothes. Making Speaker 2 (6:31) people Speaker 1 (6:31) feel Speaker 2 (6:31) good. That's it. And that's what you must find every day. You know, when you're Speaker 1 (6:34) styling clients, Speaker 2 (6:35) the Speaker 1 (6:36) tools are just like, those are just the tools. The clothes are the tools. So I did that and it was super exciting. But there was just something that just niggled me a little bit about this colour analysis thing. It was long-winded. There were lots of rules, like I say, attached to it. And part of me was just getting a little bit sick of it. So I decided to look for something a little bit different. And that's where what I'm doing now came in, really. Speaker 2 (7:03) Oh, wow. But imagine you'd have gone into that college and when she said about the fake tan, if you just never went back. Speaker 1 (7:10) I know. Isn't it such Speaker 2 (7:12) a good piece of advice? Like, sometimes you need... To just step back. Speaker 1 (7:17) And you've got to Speaker 2 (7:18) take... Strip Speaker 1 (7:18) off almost. And it literally is that. It's stripping back. And with colour, there was such a... I could feel this energy. And it was a different energy. You know, I was... It was the era of Spice Girls. Posh Spice was my favourite. Had to toe in black. You know, it was that little black dress. And that was so chic and so... But when I started looking into colour, I was like, wow, this is like someone's kind of turning the lights on again. So it was really exciting. And I loved the effect that it had on women straight away. So I could take someone who'd be, you know, head to toe in grey, and then we'd drape them in a couple of colours and they'd be like, wow. I feel different. I'd be like, yeah, you do. You can see Speaker 2 (7:59) it. You Speaker 1 (8:00) can see it. You could see it. But then I started working out that they could feel it as well, which was really interesting and really exciting. Speaker 2 (8:07) Yeah, because I think clothes are such a big part of how you feel. Speaker 1 (8:11) But Speaker 2 (8:12) I'm loving the fact we're back into colour because I think there was this moment where everything was beige, everything was black. And I've always been someone who's always injected colour into their wardrobe. Can Speaker 1 (8:24) you tell? I can see. I love it. I'm so here for these colours. But it's Speaker 2 (8:28) so fun because like you said, fashion is meant to make you feel good. It's meant to be fun. But there's so many people who are so afraid of colour. Speaker 1 (8:36) Yeah, exactly. And it, you know, what you were saying before about being stripped back, colour kind of does that to you a little bit. And it can feel like there's a bit of friction because I call it default dressing when you get stuck in a rut. So you can lose your colour. You can get stuck in a rut. You'll just go for your default, which will be black, grey, beige, neutrals. A lot of people say I'm neutral. Why is that? Why do we just do that? So it's some of its conditioning. Like literally I got here on the tube and I took a picture and I stood out a mile because I was in my purple tracksuit bottoms and my yellow leather jacket. Everything was grey and black and it is a default. So what colour is, is different frequencies of light. Okay, so to be classed as a colour, you're on the visible spectrum of light and that goes from red. This is like what the human eye can see. Okay, so we can see from red, the lowest frequency, all the way up to violet, which is the highest frequency. And every colour has a different wavelength and a different frequency. So it's like you're tuning into it, right? Black is actually the absence of light. So it doesn't have a frequency. It doesn't have an energy. So because of that, it feels really safe. Now, we're not thinking about these things. It's just subconscious. This is how humans function. It's the science bit of it, which I geeked out on a little bit once I started realizing that these women were feeling color. And the thing was that I had a TV show called Fashion Face Off. We had a couple of series of that. You'll know this as well. Dressing for camera is quite Speaker 2 (10:04) different. So different. From dressing for real life. So for camera, because we wanted the reveal to be like, Speaker 1 (10:10) so wow, an impact, like a bright red dress. Yeah. The bright red dress women who wore that dress would turn around, look incredible. They'd look in the mirror and go, I look incredible. All their friends and family would be like, oh, you do? You look amazing. They'd go straight home into their grey tracksuit. Speaker 2 (10:27) And Speaker 1 (10:27) I'd be like, what happened? You know, you looked incredible. She said, I know, but it didn't feel like me. It felt too much. And I was like, they are, this is not about how this looks. This is about how this feels. This is wild. And that led me down this path to studying chromotherapy and colour therapy and this whole idea that every colour has a different energy. And it's from ancient times. It's like from ancient Egypt, but it is. I am sorry now to all of your clients because they'll all be like in full colour from now on. Speaker 2 (10:57) I'm here for it. Speaker 1 (10:59) But it's true. It changes. It shifts things and it can shift things in people. It can teach us so much. It's a real kind of, it puts the wellbeing back into your wardrobe. Speaker 2 (11:10) So Speaker 1 (11:11) how do these colours influence our emotions? Yeah, so there's kind of the psychological side of things, which is the way that humans process colour. So our eye, when we see colour, we process it subconsciously. So it bypasses our conscious brain. We don't have to think about it. And it goes straight into our sort of reptilian brain, the little bit at the back, which then affects our, can affect our mood, can affect our energy. So it's why we know how to stop. We stop when we see a red light. You know, you don't have to think that is a red light. I am going to stop. You know, it's not like it's a warning sign. It's danger. It's red. We don't have to think about it. So that's super powerful because we're using it in signaling. They use it in culture a lot. Lots of different cultures use color differently. But also it means that it's affecting you without you even knowing it. So brands are using it to kind of to influence our buyer behavior. You know, they are definitely showcasing a lot of beige food in supermarkets in brightly colored packaging to make you feel a certain way. If you think about like greenwashing, companies using green in their logos and they're like, oh, well, it must be environmentally friendly. It's green and it's got a leaf. It's so true. Speaker 2 (12:24) It probably isn't. Speaker 1 (12:26) Exactly. It's got to be healthy. So it influences us without us even knowing it. So my big thing is, how can we flip it and like get you using this as a tool to support you, to support your emotions? You know, if it is grey outside, today it was grey outside, I put yellow on straight away. Got to be your own sunshine. Yeah, Speaker 2 (12:47) I love that. Be your own sunshine. Love that. And are there certain colours that can make people feel more energised or calm, especially if someone's going for like a job interview or going on stage, you know, anything that's quite nerve wracking. I Speaker 1 (12:59) love that. Yeah, definitely. So when you're looking at vibrations and frequencies, like the lower end of the scale is really energising. So reds and oranges and yellows are real energising colours, those lower frequencies. They've been shown on scientific studies to... increase heart rate like red was actually shown to increase the heart rate in a scientific study oh Speaker 2 (13:21) wow and Speaker 1 (13:22) then once you go up from red orange and yellow you get to green which is like mid-spectrum so if there are seven colors green slap bang in the middle so that's really balanced and you can feel that like you go for a walk in the woods you chill yeah getting into nature it's chill and then you go higher than green in this visible spectrum get higher frequency. And I know everyone's obsessed with vibing high, but the higher the frequency, the more calming the colour. So then you go for your blues and your indigos and your violets, and they're a little bit more calming. And you can kind of see that in like holistics, you know, lots of brands like that would use the more purpley colours, the higher vibrating colours. But also even in nature, you know, this is the thing that I love about this is even if you look at the stuff that's just naturally produced, like lavender. is the most calming herb out there. And it's purple. Red, chillies, energising, fiery. You kind of get in your indications. It's like we've got to go back. Speaker 2 (14:21) So true. Actually take it back to the basics. Yeah, Speaker 1 (14:24) absolutely. And then apply it. And your wardrobe is one of the easiest places to do it. Speaker 2 (14:28) So how can someone choose colours that align with their personality or even their goals? Speaker 1 (14:34) Well, we did your soul shade, didn't we? Yes. Speaker 2 (14:36) Go on, tell us what it was. My soul shade was orange, which is so mad because orange is one of my favourite colours. Speaker 1 (14:44) I'm obsessed. Speaker 2 (14:45) My aunt, the reason it became my favourite colour is because it was my mum's favourite colour and my aunt's favourite colour who passed away. And my aunt was who got me into fashion. There's so much meaning behind the colour as well. Speaker 1 (14:56) Yeah, it's wild. And I am drawn to an orange. It's so wild. So orange, when that came through that it was