An Eye For Color

"Just as you are born with perfect pitch, you are born with a perfect eye for color," says Diana Thomson. "And I have it."

Thomson has a long history of working with Harvard students. She spent three years as the wife of the Leverett House assistant senior tutor, taugh. English Car, and revealed to 16 classes of freshmen everything they have always wanted to know about Expository Writing.

But last fall Thomson left the ivory tower to return to the artist's studio she left as a child, opening a shop as a color consultant.

"It's just another form of teaching, only now I'm teaching people how they should look instead of how they should write," Thomson says.

Spiffy

As a color consultant, Thomson examines her clients' skin and hair tones to select the colors that are best for them to wear.

The first step, Thomson explains, is to classify the person as either a "spring," a "summer," a "fall," or a "winter." The categories have nothing to do with the four seasons or the hues traditionally associated with them, but instead classify colors into those based on blue and those based on gold.

People with fair complexions fall under the spring or summer rubrics, while their counterparts with dark complexions fall under either fall or winter. Once she finds the subject's general categories. Thomson uses both personal preference and trial and error to further narrow the selection, draping swatches of cloth around the client's shoulders in front of a full-length mirror.

Within each "season" come about 35 colors. Some, however, look better than others on the individual clients, so Thomson tries them all.

Brrrr

Thomson calls herself a winter. "I can wear burgundy, teal, black, light true blue." Her "medium taupe brown hair" has no red in it, which she says make her look better in blue tones rather than golden ones.

She also says she is a "permissive" color consultant, which means she does not restrict a person's "palette" to those colors included in the seasonal category.

"The doctrinaire approach to color is simple, but it lacks the fluidity that real people need," she says. "For instance, almost anyone can wear black (a winter color) if they have enough makeup on."

Thomson also advises women in cosmetics. In addition to about 150 different colors of cloth, Thomson's workshop includes a table full of rouge, eyeliners, and lipsticks to go with each group.

An entire color session runs from one and a half to two hours, at $45 an hour, or $25 for the entire session for Harvard students. For a small extra charge, Thomson makes up an individual book containing samples of each client's best colors.

And Thomson said her rates are low. Her only competitor in Cambridge charges $75 an hour, and she cites a recent article which said the cost of a color consultant in the United States runs from $35-$400 for a session.

"The reason I'm not charging more is that I wanted to do this as a service, not as a money-making advantage," Thomson says.

Thomson's clients range in age from her 15-year-old next-door neighbor to "faculty wives in their 60s." She says she advises many graduate students, because "they are going into the job market, need to invest in clothes, and want to invest in me first."

Spectrum

Men also seek Thomson's advice. She tells of one recent client, a Harvard Law School student who was about to buy a gray flannel suit for his interviews.

"I saved him, because he was a summer and needed softer tones," she says, adding that they came up with three possible colors for suits as well as several the shirts to go with them.

But Thomson says she is reluctant to take men unaffiliated with the University, unless they are referred by friends.

"I've had men call me asking to be made up, asking to try on frilly lingerie and then asking me to take their picture." Thomson says. "I explained to one that I don't have any clothes, just cloths, and he asked if he could try on the cloths in the nude."

"It's too bad I have to protect myself, because men need this service more than women do," Thomson says. She says women are brought up thinking about clothes and color, and which ones look right on them, but that men sometimes think such things are "sissy."

"I've done an excellent job of dressing two husbands and one son," she says. "They may look rumpled, but at least they're wearing what is right."

Booming

Thomson says business is going well. She has about six clients a week, all she wants. "I can't do a good job on more," she explains. Since she opened shop in November, Thomson says she has made enough money to cover half of her initial investment on cloth.

She admits that not many undergraduates use her services. "I guess even my low rates are too much," she says, adding that she anticipates a rise later in the spring as graduation approaches. "I wanted to stay in touch with students this way," she says. "I'm disappointed."

The seasonal approach to color, Thomson explains, was popularized by Carole Jackson in her book "Color Me Beautiful," but it originated with a German color theorist, Johannes Item.

"Jackson is making a mint, but she hasn't acknowledged my debt to her to the poor little German theorist," she says. "I acknowledge my debt to has, so why can't she give the pour follow some credit?"

Thomson says that discovering "Color Me Beautiful" was the best thing that ever happened to me. "She has on Jackson's original palate of 30 colors for each season by buying up new fabric.

"I know so instinctively new which colors go with which colors go with that I pick them out." Thomson says.

"When you know what colors look best on you and wear them, you like yourself better, you like others better, they like you better." Thomson says, "The world is all around a happier place."

Diane Thomson accepts clients Monday through Saturday by appointment: 876-7520