True Spring Color Palette

At a glance

Where True Spring sits, and what follows from it.

True Springfully warm and clearThis page

Each season sits between the two it shades into. The two Light seasons meet at the top, the two Deep ones at the bottom, the two Bright ones on the clear side and the two Soft ones on the muted side. Spring and Autumn are warm, Summer and Winter are cool.

Undertone: warm
Value: medium
Chroma: saturated
Buy first: Tomato red
Metal: Gold
Keep from the face: Sharp red
Olive
Mustard
Wine
Mistaken for: True Autumn Bright Spring How they differ

Am I a True Spring?

True Spring is warm above all: the cast under your skin (undertone) is fully golden with no pink in it, your coloring sits in the middle of the scale from light to dark (value, in Albert Munsell's term), and it carries color clean and strong rather than grayed (chroma).

Clear warm colors such as tomato red and golden yellow repeat the gold already in your skin and make the face look lit, while cool or grayed ones such as lavender and sage cancel that gold and leave the skin pinker and duller than it is.

Fully warm is what separates you from the other two Springs, which lean warm with a neutral edge, and The Concept Wardrobe's True Spring guide also places True Spring as the warmest of the three. The signs are golden ones. Freckles come out readily in the sun.

Hair is golden blond, strawberry blond, copper or light golden brown. Eyes are amber, topaz, warm green or a warm blue, and they look clear and defined at the rim rather than hazy. Photographs show a medium separation between hair, skin and eyes: more than a Light Spring, less than a Bright Spring.

Two of the usual clues are weaker than they look. Green veins at the wrist agree with all of this, but they agree with every warm season, so take them as a hint; the vein test is one of three in finding your undertone at home. Hair dye can hide the gold, so go by your roots, as the questionnaire does. Metal answers faster: gold looks like part of a True Spring, and silver looks like it was picked up by mistake.

In a shop, test the leading trait with two yellows. A golden yellow T-shirt is a Wear on a True Spring page: the warmth in it meets the warmth in your skin and the face looks rested. A lemon one is a Skip, too cool beside your warmth, and against it the same skin turns sallow and the shadows under the eyes come forward.

The analysis makes that comparison for all 50 colors. AI reads your five photos, with a white sheet of paper in frame to steady the light, and reads your answers, which weigh the most; fixed rules then give each color Wear, Depends or Skip with the reason, and a Depends puts the color below the waist or keeps it to an accent.

What True Spring adds to warmth is strength. The sample analysis is a Deep Autumn, a warm season too, and it keeps tomato red to an accent: "A small dose carries real saturation, a whole garment would shout." On a True Spring tomato red is the power color, and it leads the eight that follow.

Free quick checkSelf-check in four questions

Check the direction first.

Four questions from the questionnaire, scored by the rules the analysis uses. They show a direction, not a season: the analysis also reads your photos.

Question 1 of 4

Your natural hair color?

Pick the closest match. If you dye it, go by your roots.

Indicative result only

The palette

The eight colors True Spring is built on.

Tomato red
Anywhere, the face included
The power color. It carries the gold of your skin at full strength, so a tomato red coat, knit or lipstick looks chosen rather than borrowed.
Golden yellow
Anywhere, the face included
Yellow with the warmth left in, which a True Spring can wear as a whole garment: a shirt, a summer dress, a rain jacket. Lemon, its cool cousin, is a Skip.
Leaf green
Anywhere, the face included
Your one green for the face. Olive and sage are grayed, emerald is cool and forest green is dark, so all four are a Skip; leaf green keeps the clarity they lack, in a knit or a field jacket.
Coral
Anywhere, the face included
Lighter than tomato red with the same warmth, and the easy everyday top, swimsuit or scarf for days when red would be too much.
Orange
Anywhere, the face included
A Wear for just three of the twelve seasons, yours among them. A knit or an overshirt carries it best, and a bag or a sneaker is the gentle way in.
Turquoise
Anywhere, the face included
The coolest-looking color you own, though neutral underneath rather than cold, so a turquoise shirt or scarf calms an all-warm outfit without draining your skin.
Terracotta
Anywhere, the face included
The one softened, earthy color among the eight, and the season's answer for autumn: a suede jacket, corduroy trousers, a heavy knit.
Warm aquamarine
Anywhere, the face included
Paler than turquoise and warmer, made for the hottest months: swimwear, a linen shirt, a light raincoat.

Neutrals and metal

Your neutrals, your white, your metal

The neutrals: ivory, camel, latte, khaki and chocolate. All five are a Wear, and all five are warm, so they agree with each other and with every color above. Camel, latte and khaki carry the middle of the wardrobe: the chinos, the trench, the knitwear. Chocolate is the deepest and works as the anchor, in boots, belts, a bag, trousers or a winter coat. Of the three Springs, only True Spring wears khaki and chocolate at the collar.

What is missing: navy and gray. True Spring is the only season of the twelve with no navy at all. Soft navy is a Skip as too dusty for your clarity, and midnight blue a Skip as too cool. Every gray from light gray to charcoal comes back as a Depends below the waist, and so does black. That moves the suit and the coat: build them in chocolate, camel or khaki, and keep gray and black for trousers and shoes.

The white: ivory. Ivory is the only white for your top half. Pure white and soft white are a Depends below the waist: white jeans, white sneakers. A fully warm face carries gold just under the surface, and a cool white beside it cancels that gold, so the skin turns pink and slightly raw while the shirt keeps all the cleanness for itself. Ivory leans the same way you do, so the light it throws back at your face is warm.

The metal: gold. Gold and brass, in the watch, the buckle, the buttons and the frames. Silver goes cold against fully warm skin, and metals that disagree with each other make an outfit look assembled by committee.

The power color: tomato red. If one colored piece goes in first, make it tomato red near the face, and let the neutrals hold it: tomato red with camel, with khaki, with chocolate. The list of what fails is long, and nearly all of it fails for one reason.

At the face

Wear this, skip that

Tomato redSharp red
Too cool beside your warmth.
KhakiOlive
Too dusty for your clarity.
Golden yellowMustard
Too dusty for your clarity.
ChocolateWine
Too cool beside your warmth.

The colors that fight you

Twenty-one of the 50 colors are a Skip on a True Spring page, more than on either of the other Spring pages. Sixteen fail on temperature, four on clarity and one on depth.

Too cool beside your warmth: sixteen colors. Every red, pink and purple with a blue base (sharp red, raspberry, fuchsia, wine, plum, deep purple, mauve, lavender, soft pink, dusty pink), every cool blue (royal blue, midnight blue, dusty blue, ice blue), and emerald and lemon. Beside fully warm skin a cool color sets up a clash of temperature, and the skin answers by looking pink, sallow or tired. Two of the pairs above show the swap: tomato red for sharp red, chocolate for wine.

Too dusty for your clarity: mustard, olive, sage and soft navy. Each has gray mixed into it, and clean color is what a True Spring face runs on, so a grayed color beside it looks soiled rather than soft. Warmth does not rescue it. Mustard and olive are as warm as you are and still a Skip, and they mark where you part from True Autumn, which wears both at the collar. Khaki and golden yellow are the clean answers in the other two pairs.

Too deep for your coloring: forest green. The only color of the 50 you lose for depth alone, a green that sits lower than a medium face can hold. Leaf green is the one to wear.

The neutrals that slip in. The shop defaults are the trap: a navy suit, a gray knit, a black coat. Both navies are a Skip, and gray and black are a Depends for trousers and shoes. Among the near misses, warm greige, peach and warm pink stay accents, and rust and espresso stay below the waist.

One test at the rail. Since sixteen of your Skips fail on temperature, ivory can judge most of them. Hold the new piece against an ivory shirt in daylight. Beside a warm color the two look dyed for each other; beside a cool one the ivory suddenly turns yellow and the garment looks blue-gray, and that garment goes back.

Every color

All 50 colors, judged for True Spring.

Choose a color to see where it goes, the reason, and what the two seasons True Spring is mistaken for do with it. 21 of the 50 are a Skip.

Anywhere, the face included13

Tomato red

Anywhere, the face included

A shirt, a coat, anywhere.

The same color in the seasons True Spring is mistaken for

True AutumnAnywhere, the face included
Bright SpringAnywhere, the face included

Below the waist or as an accent16

Not worn21

Tomato red

Anywhere, the face included

A shirt, a coat, anywhere.

The same color in the seasons True Spring is mistaken for

True AutumnAnywhere, the face included
Bright SpringAnywhere, the face included

How to combine True Spring colors

Your page's rule is warm, clear colors side by side, medium contrast, and nothing dusty or icy.

Every color in the palette is warm, so two strong ones can share an outfit without arguing: tomato red with golden yellow looks deliberate on you, where on a Light Spring both would shrink to accents. Medium contrast follows from the depth in your coloring, which is why chocolate trousers under an ivory shirt make a strong True Spring outfit. The last clause is the strict one. A single dusty or icy piece is the thing this palette cannot absorb, and it will be the piece you blame last.

Office, men's: a khaki suit, an ivory shirt, a tomato red knit tie and chocolate brogues.
Weekend, women's: a golden yellow sundress, camel sandals and a turquoise scarf to cool it down.
Autumn, men's: a terracotta suede jacket over an ivory crew neck, light denim jeans and chocolate boots.
Evening, women's: a coral silk blouse, chocolate wide-leg trousers, gold earrings and a tomato red lip.

On True Autumn the coral blouse would shrink to a scarf, and on Bright Spring the khaki suit would become soft navy.

Mistaken for

Seasons True Spring gets confused with

	This pageTrue Springfully warm and clear	Mistaken forTrue Autumnfully warm and rich	Mistaken forBright Springwarm and high contrast
Undertone	warm	warm	warm
Value	medium	medium	light
Chroma	saturated	saturated	saturated
Metal	gold	gold	gold (mixing ok)
Soft navy
Mustard
Olive
Emerald
Khaki
Turquoise

True Autumn. The nearest season in the analysis: the two pages give the same verdict on 36 of the 50 colors, more than you share with any other season. Both are fully warm and wear gold, tomato red, golden yellow and orange at the collar, so warmth cannot split them, and the self-check beside the first section gives both the same answer, warm above all.

Clarity splits them. True Autumn wears olive and mustard at the face, where your page skips both as too dusty, and keeps turquoise to an accent, where you wear it anywhere. Hold an olive top and a turquoise one at your face in daylight: if the olive looks cut for you, read True Autumn; if the turquoise does, stay here.

Bright Spring. Two warm, clear seasons, and the two pages give the same verdict on 30 of the 50 colors. Bright Spring keeps a neutral edge in its undertone and photographs at high contrast, where you are fully warm and sit at medium contrast.

The neutral edge shows in two colors you cannot wear anywhere, emerald and soft navy, both a Wear for Bright Spring. Khaki runs the other way, a Wear for you and a below-the-waist color there. If khaki flatters you at the collar and emerald looks cold, the read is True Spring.

If olive and turquoise give you a split decision, True Autumn vs True Spring takes the pair apart with a second test, the two power colors held at the jaw, and a table of the 14 colors where the verdicts part. If tomato red takes over the picture instead of lighting your face, read Light Spring, the lighter and softer Spring.

Where to go from True Spring

How the color analysis works

FAQ

True Spring questions.

True Spring is fully warm and clear. The quick check is whether warm colors at a medium value look better on you than their opposite, and whether gold suits you better than the other metal. That gets you close. The reason people land between two seasons is that the eye compares badly under mixed light, which is what a measured analysis is for.

Nothing dramatic. The colors furthest from your palette pull attention to shadows and to any unevenness in your skin, so you look tired rather than the color looking wrong. It shows most in the piece nearest your face and barely at all below the waist, which is why the palette matters more for a shirt than for trousers.

Below the waist. Black is a step darker than your coloring and carries none of its warmth, so it reads heavy at the collar. Keep it to trousers and shoes and wear ivory or camel up top.

No. True Spring is warm at its root, and that is the axis the whole system turns on. Two seasons can share a value and a chroma and still want opposite colors, because the undertone decides which version of a color suits you.

That is what the analysis does, but not from one photo and not from the photo alone. It reads five photos against your own answers about how you burn, what your veins look like and which metal suits you, and your answers outrank the photos where the two disagree. Your photos are used for your analysis and nothing else. They are never used to train AI models.

In the 12-season system this page follows, yes: Warm Spring is another name for True Spring, the fully warm center of the Spring family, and the palette is the same under either name. Some palette makers split the two. Kettlewell, for one, describes True Spring as "an even balance of Spring's warm, bright and light characteristics" and lists Warm Spring, which it also calls Golden Spring, as a separate type, so check whose system a palette comes from.

No, neither navy. Soft navy has too much gray in it for your clarity and midnight blue runs too cool, so both are a Skip, and no other season of the twelve loses both. Chocolate takes over navy's jobs: the suit, the coat, the dark trousers.

Not the cool ones. Lavender, ice blue and soft pink are a Skip, too cool beside your warmth, and mint is an accent only. Your light colors come from the warm side: coral and warm aquamarine anywhere, ivory and latte as the pale neutrals, and peach and warm pink as an accent, in a scarf, a strap or a shoe.

Yes, at full size. Orange is a Wear for three seasons of the twelve, True Spring, Bright Spring and True Autumn, and on you it repeats the gold in your skin at full strength. If a whole orange knit feels like a lot, start with a bag or a shoe and move up.

Ivory. It is the only white your page lets near your face; pure white and soft white are a Depends below the waist, so they work as jeans and sneakers. A shirt sits right under your face and gets worn every week, so this is the swap you see first.

Another question about the method or your result? Write to us

True Spring: your palette, and what to leave on the rail.

Where True Spring sits, and what follows from it.