Have I worn the wrong clothes all of my life?

As the 80s craze for getting your colours done becomes a hit with Gen Z thanks to TikTok, Luisa Metcalfe finds out if it can help her discover her true style

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I'm staring at myself in the mirror with a swathe of pale lilac draped across my body.

"Ghoulish" is a generous way to describe my pasty complexion, bluish eye bags and shadowy face.

Then the offending fabric is whipped away and replaced with "royal" purple, a deep, rich shade - the colour of my old school uniform, and a hue I previously thought unwearable. But it's like I've just been brought back to life - warmth floods into my cheeks, my eyes sparkle and my skin tone looks more even.

This is the bizarre magic of personal colour analysis, or "getting your colours done".

The craze kicked off in the 80s, thanks to organisations such as Colour Me Beautiful and House of Colour, whose trained consultants would use fabric swatches to show clients which shades made them look most alive or like death warmed up.

It's all down to skin tone (warm or cool), which then puts you into a colour season: winter, summer, spring or autumn. And thanks to social media, particularly TikTok, it is back.

Videos of women having their final “aha” moment as they discover their best colours are garnering hundreds of thousands of views. There is also a selection of TikTok filters to discover your colour season or the lipstick shade that will flatter you most.

"It helps you understand what makes you look alive," says colour analyst and personal stylist Emma Letzer, 49, from North London.

"Colour analysis is part of the jigsaw puzzle to help people understand what suits them. You only need to do it once in your life. Even if you dye your hair you will always have the same skin tone and eye colour.