Roaring Colors!

Today’s post is brought to you by the colors turquoise and magenta.

I wear a lot of black. There are lots of reasons that a good majority of the clothing I own is black.
~ It’s easy and it’s classic.
~ For my job we must wear black or khaki pants. Not a huge fan of khaki.
~ I actually look good in black. Some people do not have the coloring, it makes them look washed out. I, however, can!
~ Black is slimming. All young ladies are taught this as a basic rule of life, shopping and fashion. It’s true! What it actually does is absorb light so that curves, bulges, lumps and bumps are hidden. Whereas white and lighter colors do the opposite.

We are also taught that wearing one color top to bottom makes you look slimmer because it gives the eye a straight vertical line to look at and doesn’t emphasize any particular areas. When you wear different colors top and bottom, the eye is instantly attracted to where the break occurs – usually around the waist or hips – not usually the area we want emphasized!

I looked in the mirror during class one day a few weeks ago and realized I was a bit of a cliche. I was wearing black pants, a black top, even my sports bra and ponytail holder were back. I had on white and silver shoes, but even my socks were black! The only color was the lime green soles of my shoes – but that was mostly because they are my good supportive cross trainers and that’s the color they came in. If I have my preference on shoes, it’s not black or white, but grey. Not much difference, really.

I went home that day and pulled out all my gym clothes and was actually a bit shocked at how little color there was. I had a little bit of navy blue and my favorite yoga pants are a dark charcoal grey. I had one shirt that was a turquoise color – but even it was pretty dark.

One of the fun things about Zumba is the crazy colors and outfits (Check out Zumba.com) Not every instructor wears official Zumba gear, but they all have at least a few fun and funky things they’ll wear – even if it’s just their shoes.

So there I was, in my head-to-toe black, disguising my curves and bumps and lumps, hiding in the back row.

Something clicked that day and I decided NO MORE!!

My next trip to Goodwill I mentally prepared myself for clothes shopping. I was specifically looking for exercise/dancing clothes and intentionally SKIPPED the section of black clothes. I came away with a pair of royal blue yoga pants and three tops – magenta, turquoise and white with blue geometric designs. A couple of days later at a non-thrift store I found myself some neon hair ties and headbands – you know, because the 80’s are coming back!

Then, on the way out of the store a shirt practically jumped out and yelled “Here I am!! I’m the one!” I’m not one for clothing with a lot of …shall we call it bling – sparkle, gems, glitter, studs, etc. You know, the things that might draw attention. Well…it’s kind of hard to see, but this one has it ALL AND the image of a tiger. As soon as I saw it I thought “Hear me ROAR!”
Yes…I was channeling Katy Perry.

I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire
‘Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar

Here is to being my own hero!

Now I’m not getting rid of perfectly good workout clothes just because they are black, but they will always be paired with something that says I AM HERE!

I spent this past holiday weekend with my sister and her family. My five year old niece is my mini-me. Yeah…it’s good to be the cool aunt. She heard me talking about dancing and Zumba to my mom and sis and she wanted to know what it was. I told her it was kind of like exercise, but it was dancing to really cool music, so it was lots of fun. Did I mention that she is in love with dancing? She decided I needed to show her and dance with her! I already had on my royal blue pants and my tiger shirt, so I pulled up some Enrique Iglesias on my laptop and taught my first Zumba class! The really fun part was that my mom and sister were just going to watch, but then they couldn’t sit still either. We got through about three songs before they’d had enough.

My niece and I then went for about a twenty minute walk around the neighborhood. When we got back, I cleaned up, put on clean clothes and went back downstairs wearing the only extra top I’d brought with me – black and grey stripes. My niece immediately climbed in my lap and asked what had happened to my other shirt. I explained that I’d gotten hot and sweaty and now it needed washing before I could wear it again. She then said, “Well we can put it in the washing machine so you can wear it. I like it better than this one.”

That answers that question.

It’s really easy to get colors right.
It’s really hard to get black – and neutrals – right.
Black is certainly a color but it’s also an illusion.
Donna Karan