Colorful Career of an Image Consultant : Both Women, Men Find New Selves in Coordinated Hues

“You don’t want to bring out circles under your eyes, unless you’re doing an Alka Seltzer ad.”

“People plan vacations and finances but keep buying clothes and putting them in their closets, hoping they will turn into a wardrobe!”

Image consultant Rebel Holiday’s business is transformation. With her neon red curls, throaty laugh and fresh-faced beauty, Holiday takes center stage, and her course in “Visual Excellence” pulls in professional women by the droves. Holiday bubbles with tips to bring out the best in everyone through using color to enhance natural skin tone, and specific design principles to highlight the individual’s personal style.

Holiday is part of a growing phenomenon--the burgeoning field of image consulting, which encompasses not only color, but style, wardrobe, attitude, body type--the total look. Consultants, many with thousands of clients, analyze people’s colors at homes, beauty salons, cosmetic counters and work seminars. Consumers are becoming better educated about color and style, and banks and other businesses have embraced the concept to spruce up their corporate images, particularly at the middle and lower managerial level.

Like many others, Holiday, 27, stresses individuality. “I don’t believe in making people look like other people.”

At class sessions, Holiday whips out fabrics from a brimming basket, draping different people, showing how some colors and prints work and some don’t. Depending on skin tone, a softly swirled blue floral print makes one woman look like a “sofa,” another “a wood nymph.” The color black chops one client off at the neck while making another look vibrant and healthy.

“Some people shouldn’t even stand near black,” Holiday said.

“I was always told to wear rust. So like a good little redhead, I did. People would say, ‘Do you feel OK?’ I’d go into the bathroom and put on more rust blusher and lipstick and straighten my rust blazer. I looked like the star of a low budget horror film!”

Each month, Holiday’s combination of savvy, energy, expertise and quick wit attracts 20-25 people. The $275 package includes an individual color and makeup session, an individualized “color fan,” four 2 1/2-hour evening classes and a notebook with course materials, quotes, written exercises and guidelines for creating a professional and personal wardrobe.

One recent participant, Michelle Miller, is director of the Technical Communications Center at MA-COM Government Systems. A pragmatic executive with three degrees, she admitted, “I never had a class in appearance or design, yet I know from being a public speaker that it’s important. I’ve studied how to speak but not how to look.”

The first night, Michelle wore a “before” ensemble, a lavender blouse with bow and a gray knee-length suit.

“This is a real outfit,” she grinned ruefully. Even the uninitiated could see that the purple drained Michelle’s naturally attractive features. “I’ve always had trouble with my red hair and yellow skin tone.”

Miller attended all four classes, took an additional Saturday workshop and shopped with Holiday’s guidance.

“I look at the whole course as a professional investment. I believe it will save me time and money when I shop. I need to invest in my wardrobe, but I want to do it in a cost-effective way.”

In greater numbers, men, too, now seek color and image advice.

DeAnna Tarantino, of Charisma Color Concepts, said, “One-third of my clients are men, a drastic change from two years ago. Men become believers. Where a woman may stray from her color palette, men don’t.”

Charisma Color Concepts is one of about 40 color consultant companies in San Diego--not including the beauty salons and cosmetic counters that perform such services.

A quarter of Holiday’s clients are men.

“Men are great. They do exactly as they’re told but they’re not as willing to come to class.”

Before classes begin, each client has an individual color session. Seated in natural daylight, without makeup, the person is draped with a neutral cloth. From stacks of trays holding 5,000 inch-square colored material swatches, Holiday chooses samples to hold against the cheek in a systematic order. Holiday or her assistants gauge whether or not the skin changes color.

Holiday’s system is based on scientific principles of color interaction derived from the Muncell color wheel, a numerically defined color system. Colors which bring out gray, green or yellow skin tones are eliminated.

“We start with the reds because red’s a color that will bring out the green (in the skin). Red and green intensify each other. We start with the bluest red and go to the warmest red . . . and continue through the spectrum.

“Rather than putting people into categories, we determine the range of colors that work and evaluate the patterns in the colors. . . . You never know for sure what’s going to happen. I consciously do not guess.”

After the analysis, a fan of more than 100 fabric swatches is fashioned to “put a fence around the field” for that individual: from lightest to darkest, brightest to dullest, warmest to coolest.

“All of a person’s colors are consistent, harmonious and have similar color qualities,” said Holiday. “The small pieces of fabric work completely accurately.” And once the fan is created, it is “good for life. The skin stays constant.”

Tarantino stressed that correct colors bring the best balance of molecules to the skin. “We’re like chameleons. . . . Wearing the right colors is actually a mini-face lift. . . . Our oldest client, 82, said, ‘I’m going to look wonderful the rest of my life.”

Armed with their color fans, 25 new participants met recently in Holiday’s La Jolla home, studded with artifacts from world tours led by her travel-adventurer husband, Jack Wheeler.

This class, composed primarily of working professionals--an engineer, writer, teacher, manager, video talk show host, loan officer--gave varied responses when asked what they hoped to get out of the class: “I want to learn more about myself in order to gain self-confidence,” “To know how to put things together,” ’I’d like to do something with my hair!” and “How to dress well yet still compete in a man’s world.” Many wanted to simplify shopping and gain a knack for dressing harmoniously within the constraints of the business environment.

To help unravel the complex origins of self-image, the class completed work sheets detailing “My mother always said I was . . . My father always said I was . . . Men in my life have said . . . “

“We carry how people see us through our lifetimes,” said Holiday. “My parents always told me I could do anything I made up my mind to do.” A precocious teen-ager, Holiday was self-sufficient at 16, and sold $1.5 million worth of real estate in her first month on the job at age 19. But with glasses, braces and red hair, “I grew up thinking I was somewhere between plain and ugly.

“The key to accepting yourself is liking yourself. People are already in harmony. They look so good before they do anything to themselves,” said Holiday.

When Holiday asked how many in the class had written goals, half the hands shot up. “Good,” she said, “Usually only 30% have written goals. If you really want to change, you can.”

“Fear can be a crippling thing,” said Amy Canegaly, a young financial planner. “Goals change you. You are forced into situations where you have to come through.”

Rebel Holiday strides around the circle of class participants with ready words of praise. “Good choice,” “See what a change that clear color makes!” ’You have a wonderful figure. Why hide it under that big jacket?” She tucks in ruffles, unties bows and fiddles with jewelry. Critiques are kind-- “Good suit. You might look for a blouse with a bigger print”--with gentle teasing--”knot in your purse strap?”

“I am naturally nurturing,” said Holiday. “I would rather do what I’m doing than anything else.

“Women want to look their individual best. How you look affects how you feel, which affects how you act. Color is only a tool. I never just do colors. Women want to project an individual look based on body shape, bone structure, hair, color quotient and style.” Holiday terms this “Human Visual Design.”

She helps student define their own personal style from 11 categories--like dramatic, elegant, chic, exotic, natural--and suggests personality traits which can be linked with color.

“The styles you wear must be congruent for you. People have different aspects of their personalities they want to express.”

Holiday slipped into different persona for each class session. With dramatic makeup, she was alternately the successful businesswoman in high fashion electric blue suit with emerald green blouse, the artistic ingenue in a mauve knit dress with a sassy sash around her head, the coquette in shimmering blue blouse, ivory wool skirt and round white tam over upswept curls.

“I do this deliberately to show you different sides of me. But I can’t be mysterious,” she said. “I can’t keep mysterious up through appetizers!” Donning her hair designer’s black leather suit jacket, Holiday vamped across the room like a mischievous Shirley Temple. “See, on Debra it looks exotic. It makes me look like a biker!

“You want your clothes to enhance you. Many times the clothes wear us.” Holiday covers the shape, size and color of glasses, belts, purses and other accessories. Clients expressed surprise at how small details could change a look--ruffles vs. tailored blouse collar, bulky vs. small scale jewelry.

She exchanged one women’s dainty round watch for a big, square-shaped one. “See how Carol can wear a larger, more angular watch?” Rebel asked the class.

“And I can read the watch better, too,” quipped Carol Costa, a PSA personnel director.

“Your hair should pick up the lines of your face,” explained Holiday, adjusting each person’s hair--fluffing, pulling back, piling tresses on top. If the face has angularity--strong jaw, high cheekbones--so should the hair. Rounder features are compatible with a softer look.

“Deal with the body you have,” she said. “Don’t buy clothes for the body you are planning to have. If you open your closet and find nothing to wear, you won’t feel like eating salad!”

Throughout the course, Holiday stressed the difference between casual dressing and business attire.

“You don’t want to be a woman trying to dress like a man,” said Holiday. By the same token, “The length of the skirt and color are both important. Someone applying for a management position shouldn’t wear fire engine red. A neutral suit and colored blouse are best for an interview.”

Like others in the class, Michelle Miller has applied what she’s learned to her existing wardrobe. But change can be gradual.

“My polka dot blouses will go,” she said. “Some of my clothes I’ll modify-- take the ruffles off blouses, shorten or eliminate the bows . . . (I’ve worn bows for 11 years!) I have a black suit, not my color, but I’ll wear it with a blouse in my colors.”

Used to wearing small-scale jewelry, Miller will shift to larger, more angular jewelry. “My secretary and I traded jewelry.

The final test can be applying color and style concepts to clothes shopping.

Increasingly, stores are ready to help with personal shoppers and informed sales personnel. Diane Glass of Diane Vlahovich & Associates, a Scripps Ranch firm whose system is based on pioneer colorist Carol Jackson’s “Color Me Beautiful” approach, said, “Sales clerks have been forced to be more aware of color, because people are coming in with their color profiles. The phenomenon (awareness of color) is definitely still on the rise.”

Holiday encourages clients to practice shopping in their own closets (using their color fans), and to “know what you’re looking for.” For a fee, Holiday will spend a few rapid-fire hours shopping with clients.

As part of her transformation, Michelle Miller shopped with Holiday.

“It was incredible,” said Miller. “I was amazed at how quickly she could look at something and evaluate it. She’s fast and efficient. But by the end of the day, I was getting better at it, too.”

At the next class, cheers and wolf whistles greeted Miller as she pirouetted in her new suit--a desert sand neutral--and deep turquoise blouse. With handsome briefcase, a new high-style look for her copper red hair, and carefully applied makeup, she projected confidence, vitality and self-assured glamour.

“Someone walked right past me at work today and did a double take. ‘Michelle?’ ” she laughed. “I’ve never looked like this before. I don’t feel the same inside, and my husband loves it!”

“I do good work!” said Holiday, mugging for the class. “You look gorgeous! Michelle has mastered the classic look.”

More than half of the women attending Holiday’s class had had their colors done before. She acknowledged that without the increased awareness such color packaging has brought about, people would not be as receptive to her approach. But Holiday made it clear that hers is no “pop color system.”

“There are lots of color systems,” she said. “But there are maybe five people in this country who know what they’re doing with color.

“There’s a fraud being perpetrated on the American public. You can’t put five billion people on this earth into four categories. You can’t simplify color to the point of giving prepackaged colors.

“Everybody’s different, their spectrums are individual. I was told, ‘Don’t wear pink, don’t wear red,’ all based on my red hair. In fact, I can wear certain reds and pinks.

“When I first started, I called 50-100 color consultants around the country to ask about their training and the system they used for color analysis,” said Holiday. She studied art at UC Berkeley, then did intensive study with Veronica Bialik from the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design, and with Annette Fusco in Chicago.

“I sat next to the best in the country for about a year,” said Holiday, who combined the best of what she learned with her own approach.

In addition to classes and seminars, Holiday also does fund-raisers for nonprofit organizations. In June, Rebel Holiday and Associates will open a new office and training center in La Jolla to train consultants to take her system nationwide.

Clients can always return for refreshers, updates, refueling, free of charge, Holiday said. “Once a client, always a client.

“The most important thing is that people know how to express who they are. This changes people’s lives forever.”