How to wear radiant orchid (part 1) + Create your own ensembles!

Colors are one of life’s magical things. They can bring you in different moods and depending on how you use them can create the most beautiful art and images.

Playing with color is fun. It can also be challenging.

How, for example, will you wear Pantone’s new color of the year: Radiant Orchid?

Colourlovers to the rescue

I like to take inspiration from color palettes, images, patterns and fabric and Colourlovers is the perfect site to play with all of these.  This site lets you create your own colors, palettes and prints.

I usually just go there to take inspiration from others and the first two palettes I found were A kiss before I go and World Orchid pictured above. Then I couldn’t really find the colour combinations I was looking for.

So I decided to create my own and setup an account (you can view my profile here). and came up with the simple but very practical Graphic Orchid. (yes, you do have to invent your own names; another test for your creativity!).

If you’re not inspired to come up with the colours youself, you can also import images and create your palettes from those. I started out with Pantone’s own Orchid image which resulted in the monochromatic Orchid Bliss palette.

Now enthusiastic about all the possibilities, I imported the images of my red, orchid and orange dress which resulted in the Montensia Paradise palette.

I created Mysterious Vibe from an image from the Guo Pei collection and the Shoedelicious palette from my funky Chie Mihara shoes!

These last two don’t have the exact Radiant Orchid, but contain softer versions of the color. If you don’t particularly like the pure radiant orchid, you can always go for softer tones of this color.

I even created a basic Radiant Orchid texture.

Colourlovers is a very fun tool to use to get inspiration for your ensembles. The only problem is that you may get too enthusiastic and can’t stop creating new palettes or patters as was the case with me.

Create ensembles from your favorite color palette(s)

So I did not get round to do the final step, which is to go into Polyvore and start creating ensembles with my favorite colour palettes. Since quite a few of you now know how to use Polyvore, I was hoping you may want to help me with this next step!

Choose your favorite color palette and create a collage on how YOU would wear Radiant Orchid or a variation of that colour. For some inspiration on how to create your collage, you can check previous articles in this series on how to wear orange and how to wear green.

When you are done, send me the links to your collages through the comments below no later than February 4. Then next week, I will present my own collages together with your’s to give you the ultimate guide on how to wear radiant orchid. Of course I will give you full credit for your collage and will link to your collage at Polyvore as well as your website, if you have one. If you don’t find any of the above palettes appealing and would like to create your own, by all means do!

I hope I have persuaded you to join in! I look forward to seeing your creations.

For now, let me know which is your favorite color palette and how you would wear radiant orchid?

UPDATE: be sure the check the final article and ultimate guide on how to wear radiant orchid here

Pallettes:  A kiss before I go and world orchid. All others by myself at 40PlusStyle