Cool, soft skin tones (True Summer)

Where this season sits

True Summer is fixed by three things and nothing else: it is cool-toned, medium in value and soft. Undertone decides which half of the wheel is yours, value decides how dark the colours run, and chroma decides how much grey sits in them.

Metals follow the undertone, which is why silver is the one to wear. The four neutrals below are the ones to build on, because a wardrobe is mostly neutrals and only occasionally a colour.

• #6E7B8B: mid-tone, nearest common name grey (ΔE 14.2).
• #9AA5B1: light, a grey (ΔE 7.3).
• #D8D5D0: very light, a cream (ΔE 7.3).
• #3E4A5A: deep, a charcoal (ΔE 8.2).

Colours that work on True Summer

These are the colours from an ordinary shop rail that land inside the True Summer palette. The number after each is the distance from the colour to the closest thing in the palette: under 12 reads as the same colour family, and everything here is measured rather than judged.

• Mauve (#9A7B8C): ΔE 3.9 from #9E7C98.
• Grey (#9A9A9A): ΔE 7.3 from #9AA5B1, one of the season neutrals.
• Cream (#F2E8D5): ΔE 7.3 from #D8D5D0, one of the season neutrals.
• Sky blue (#8FC1E3): ΔE 7.6 from #B0C4D4.
• Lavender (#B9A5D6): ΔE 7.8 from #C0A8C0.
• Charcoal (#36393D): ΔE 8.2 from #3E4A5A, one of the season neutrals.
• White (#FAFAFA): ΔE 8.4 from #D8D5D0, one of the season neutrals.
• Blush pink (#E8BFC4): ΔE 10.0 from #D89AA8.
• Beige (#D9C6A8): ΔE 10.7 from #D8D5D0, one of the season neutrals.

Colours to leave on the rail

These sit far enough from the palette that they read as borrowed from someone else's colouring. Black, terracotta, mustard and rust are worse than merely distant: they land on the season's own avoid list, which is the short list of colours that actively work against this colouring.

• Forest green (#22432E): ΔE 22.2 from #3E4A5A, one of the season neutrals.
• Olive green (#6B6B3A): ΔE 23.4 from #6C9C88.
• Chocolate brown (#4A2C1A): ΔE 24.6 from #3E4A5A, one of the season neutrals.
• Black (#111111): ΔE 19.7 from #3E4A5A, one of the season neutrals.
• Burgundy (#5C1A2B): ΔE 28.0 from #3E4A5A, one of the season neutrals.
• Terracotta (#C36A4E): ΔE 21.6 from #C48CA0.
• Mustard (#D4A017): ΔE 28.0 from #D8D5D0, one of the season neutrals.
• Rust (#B7410E): ΔE 32.7 from #C48CA0.

The seasons either side

Palettes overlap. Soft Summer and Light Summer are the closest to True Summer measured across every colour in both, so if the season label ever feels one notch off, those are where to look first.

This matters more than it sounds. A twelve-season label is a convention imposed on a continuous space, and the honest reading of a borderline result is not a different label but a smaller claim.