How TikTok is bringing back doing your colours

Are you a spring, summer, autumn or winter?

Colour analysis which was called "doing your colours" in the '80s is a style guide that's back in a big way on social media.

A colour consultant drapes swatches of fabric on a client to determine their best "season," based on their skin tone, hair and eye colour, and uses this information to determine what clothing colours would likely be the most flattering.

On TikTok alone, the hashtag #coloranalysis has hundreds of millions of views.

WATCH | CBC's consumer affairs show Marketplace looked into trend in 1983:

What are your colours?

42 years ago

Duration 2:14

A colour consultant helps a client find the most flattering shades.

Those who provide colour analysis services in Calgary say they've seen increased demand for it lately. But for them, it'smore than a trend they've been doing it for years.

Fiona McAllister, personal style coach and owner of the online Style by Fiona, has been in the business for about 10 years. She said she's seen steady demand for colour analysis in that time.

But she said it's taken off in the past two months.

"I started getting this influx of business. I was like, 'Whoa, what's happening?' It's amazing how social media can influence what's trendy and be good for business, too," she said.

She said she's seen people of all ages seek out the services.

"When you know which range of colours work best for you, then you can only buy and only wear what is in your palette," McAllister said."When you know what works for you, then you're no longer wasting money on what's in style."

She sees colour analysis as a way to build a wardrobe that lasts.

"The fashion industry is not necessarily built for individual people. It's built for companies to make money. People at the top of the industry determine what the colours [of the season] are going to be," she said.

Ilse Pretorius, image consultant at Canadian Image Company, said she used to see around two to three people a week for the service.

Now it's closer to four or five people every two days.

"Before COVID, most of the clients that I used to see [had] done colour analysis in the '80s and they wanted to do it again," she said.

But now, she said, she's seeing younger people interested in putting a capsule wardrobe together.

'It's going to pop up on your feed'

Francesca D'Angelo, professor and program co-ordinator for the fashion management program at Humber College in Toronto, said because of social media, more people are consuming brand and fashion content, even if they don't want to.

"It's going to pop up in your feed," she said.

"Back in my day in the '90s, in order to get fashion news, let's say, I would have to wait for Jeanne Beker on Fashion Television on Sunday nights."

Cost of Living5:16'Doing Your Colours' is making a comeback

Back in the 80s, you didn't just wear random colours. You figured out what season you were (winter, summer, spring, autumn) and dressed in the colour palette that corresponded with your season. It was called "Doing Your Colours." Today, it's called "Colour Analysis" and producer Danielle Nerman asks why this retro fashion advice is, once again, big business.

Now, she said, people can get that content at the click of a button, which can make people feel like they need to curate or constantly better themselves.

"It has become more democratic, in a sense, because it's available to all," she said.

She said people can feel pressure to be a part of that "social game" and may not have the funds for it.

She added that colour analysis is great, but it can also leave little room for wardrobe spontaneity.

D'Angelorecommendedthat if you're the kind of person whowould not have cared about colour or colour analysis, and would normally have bought whatever was on sale out of necessity, to notquestion yourself just because something is trendy.