Here's a thought...

My school finally started a sports program when i was in middle school, 8th grade to be exact. We we were told to vote on school colors for the teams, and we did. I'm sure we all thought the colors we ended up with were the colors we voted on, but i had a revelation the other day.
The colors - powder blue, white, and silver - were all in our Principals Color-Me-Beautiful color pallet. There's no way she would have been caught dead in a brown, cream, and gold sweatshirt bearing the school's name. Her color season was Winter, and Winters would never wear those colors. Talk about looking faded and washed out. Horror of all horrors!
Anybody go through that ridiculous fashion trend? The good ol color swatch sampler...it was bright yellow and just the right size for a ladies purse. When you opened it up and unfolded it, all the color swatches were displayed, and it looked like a paint or carpet sampler. The company actually had women who were paid to throw bolts of colored fabric over you so that only your face showed, and then depending on whether the color made your eyes "pop" or your skin look "faded" you were told whether or not you should wear that color. Very scientific.
You could be labeled as one of four seasons: Winter, Spring, Autumn, or Summer. Each of those seasons had sub-categories. I believe i was a Soft Autumn. What did this mean? I have no clue, except that under no circumstances whatsoever was i ever to wear Black, White, Silver, or Fuchsia. These were bad colors for me. They would wash me out and make me look like a sick and dying cat. Fabulous. Instead of white, i wore off-white. Instead of black, i wore brown. Gold jewelry only. If i wore red, it had to be orange-red, not purple-red. I can remember shopping with my mom or other ladies from the school and spending 15 minutes with a shirt and a color swatch trying to determine if it was in their accepted range of color. Sheesh!! Who cares if it's a kelly green or a hunter green?! Do you like it? Do you feel good in it? Does it match the pants in your hand? Does it go with your favorite lipstick? Then get it!! Tell Color-Me-Beautiful to get over it!
So of course, as soon as i went off to college, i started wearing lots of black, white and pink things, and only silver jewelry. And i looked pretty dern good in all of it, if i do say so myself. No one forced me to follow the color pallet rule while in middle and high school, and my mom really didn't care at all. But it was highly annoying to go to school in something you really liked only to be told by someone who thought that pantyhose, pumps and patriotic scarves were fashionable, "hmmm, i'm not so sure that's a good color for you."
And now? Now i thank God every day that there are other stores besides JCPenny and Sears where i can freely shop and choose things that Color-Me-Beautiful would have no clue what to do with, haha!
Ok, so that's a slight exaggeration. But, i do think i'll go see if i can find my mom's old book of color swatches...the fireplace needs some starter materials for the winter. :)