What color draping is
Color draping is the core technique of seasonal color analysis. An analyst places large pieces of colored fabric, called drapes, under your chin one after another and watches what each color does to your face. Some colors make your skin look clearer and more even, your eyes brighter and your features sharper. Others make you look tired, sallow, flushed or washed out, even though nothing about your face has changed.
The point is comparison. Almost nobody can look at a single color and say "this is my season". But most people can see a difference when two colors are swapped back and forth under the same face in the same light. Draping turns a vague question ("what suits me?") into a series of small, answerable ones ("which of these two is better?").
How professionals drape
An in-person draping session follows a fairly standard routine:
- Neutral setting. Grey or white walls, a grey or white cape over your clothes, and your hair covered with a neutral wrap so it does not influence the result.
- Clean skin. No foundation, blush or lipstick, because makeup is itself a color.
- Controlled light. Daylight from a window, or daylight-balanced lamps. Warm bulbs make every warm drape look better.
- Paired tests, from broad to fine. First temperature (warm vs cool, often gold vs silver lamé), then depth (light vs deep), then clarity (bright vs muted). Each step narrows the field until two neighboring seasons remain.
- Season sets at the end. The analyst flips through a full set of drapes for each finalist season to confirm the one where nearly every color works.
It works because the eye judges color relative to what is next to it. A drape right under the face changes how the skin around it is perceived, which is exactly what your clothes do every day.
Physical drapes vs digital draping
Physical drapes have one big advantage: real fabric reflects a little colored light onto your skin, and an experienced analyst sees you in three dimensions. The downsides are cost, travel, a limited set of fabrics, and the fact that a session happens once, in one lighting condition, and leaves you with memories rather than images.
Digital draping puts the colors on a photo of you. Done well, it lets you compare any two colors instantly, as many times as you like, and keep the images. Its limits are honest ones: the result can only be as good as the photo, and a photo cannot recreate the light a real drape bounces onto your chin. That is why capture conditions matter so much more online than in a studio.
Why background-swap tools are not draping
Many "online draping" tools simply change the color behind your head. That is not what draping is. A colored background sits far from your face, behind it, and mostly affects how your silhouette reads. A drape sits right under the face and surrounds the jaw and neck, which is where the effect on skin is visible.
Other tools lay a tinted overlay across the whole image, which changes your skin too and defeats the purpose. If the color touches your face pixels, you are no longer seeing what the color does to you; you are seeing a filter.
How our draping tool works
Our tool recolors your actual top in the photo, at the neckline where a drape would sit:
- On-device segmentation. A model running in your browser separates face, hair, skin and clothing. For this free tool the photo is processed on your device, not uploaded.
- Color correction first. Your white or light top doubles as a white reference: we measure the camera's color cast on it and correct the whole photo in CIELAB, so warm indoor light does not make every warm drape win.
- Exact shades, shading kept. The top is recolored to the exact hex of each drape color while keeping its folds and shadows, so it looks like fabric, not a flat sticker. Face and hair pixels are never touched.
- Duels, then palettes. You start with a few paired rounds (gold vs silver, warm vs cool, clear vs muted, light vs deep), then flip through any of the 12 season palettes and compare two side by side. Save the colors you think win.
For the best results, wear a plain white or light, solid-colored top with a simple neckline. Busy prints, logos, scarves and dark tops are harder to recolor cleanly.
How to read a drape: what to look at
Look at your face, not the color. The question is never "is this a pretty color?" but "what is this color doing to me?" Signs of a good drape:
- Skin looks even. Redness around the nose and chin calms down; blotches and dark circles look softer.
- Shadows lift. The area under the eyes and around the mouth looks less hollow.
- Eyes look clearer. The whites look whiter and the iris color more defined.
- The jawline looks crisp, not blurred into the neck.
- You see your face first, and the color second.
Signs of a poor drape:
- Skin looks grey, yellow, green or ashy.
- Redness, lines and under-eye shadows become more visible.
- The color arrives before you do: you notice the shirt, not the person.
- Lips look pale and the face looks flat.
Squint slightly to judge overall harmony, and always judge in pairs. Switch quickly between the two options; the difference is easiest to see in the moment of change.
The 12 seasons' signature drapes
Each season has a handful of colors that show its character clearly. These are the signature drapes we use from our palettes:
| Season | Signature drapes | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Light Spring | Peach, Coral Pink, Light Turquoise, Periwinkle | Light, warm, clear |
| True Spring | Coral, Golden Yellow, Turquoise, Kelly Green | Warm, golden, bright |
| Bright Spring | Coral, Hot Pink, Turquoise, Kelly Green | Vivid, warm-leaning |
| Light Summer | Rose Pink, Powder Blue, Lavender, Light Teal | Light, cool, airy |
| True Summer | Rose Pink, Raspberry, Periwinkle, Teal Blue | Cool, soft |
| Soft Summer | Dusty Rose, Mauve, Dusty Blue, Soft Teal | Muted, cool-leaning |
| Soft Autumn | Camel, Soft Salmon, Sage, Soft Teal | Muted, warm-leaning |
| True Autumn | Rust, Mustard, Olive, Warm Teal | Warm, rich, earthy |
| Deep Autumn | Rust, Olive, Teal, Chili Red | Deep, warm |
| Deep Winter | Ruby, Emerald, Royal Blue, Royal Purple | Deep, cool |
| True Winter | True Red, Royal Blue, Emerald, Fuchsia | Cool, crisp, bold |
| Bright Winter | Hot Pink, Electric Blue, Emerald, True Red | Vivid, cool-leaning |
Notice how neighbors share colors: Bright Spring and Bright Winter both own clear, saturated shades, and Soft Summer and Soft Autumn both own muted teals. That is why the deciding duels are between neighbors, not opposites.
Getting the light right
Lighting decides more digital drapes than anything else. Face a window in indirect daylight, avoid direct sun and mixed light (a lamp plus a window), keep colored walls and bright objects out of the frame, and turn off beauty filters and portrait effects. Take the photo straight on, at eye level, with your hair pulled back if you can. If you want a measured starting point before draping, the undertone test and contrast test use the same kind of photo.
When you are ready for a verdict instead of a comparison, the free AI color analysis combines measurements from your photo with a guided drape duel and tells you which season fits best. To check a single item from your closet, try Does this color suit me?.