The Power of Colour Psychology with Emma Shoe
Unleashing Joy through Colour with Emma Shoe
Emma Shoe loves seeing the transformation the right clothes and accessories can make. She particularly loves helping women who are going through life transitions - because she’s been through many of them herself. She understands first-hand the challenges of having to re-establish your network and career, not only after having children, but also after having relocated three times for her husband’s career. She’s also had to overcome self-confidence issues around body shape due to chronic IBS. Follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Color isn’t just about style—it’s a powerful tool for joy, confidence, and energy. In this episode, Emma Shoe, a former shoe designer turned personal stylist, shares how color psychology can transform your wardrobe, workspace, and mindset. From a life-changing technicolor jacket to the surprising effects of Baker-Miller Pink in prisons, Emma reveals how small shifts in color can boost happiness and even career success. Whether you're stuck in a sea of black or looking to refresh your space, Emma’s insights will inspire you to embrace joy through color in every part of your life.
[00:00] Unleashing Joy through Colour with Emma Shoe
[00:32] The Power of Colour Psychology
[01:14] Transformative Stories: Colour in the Workplace
[03:43] The Impact of Colour in Your Environment
[04:24] The Fascinating Story of Baker Miller Pink
[05:47] The Impact of Black in Fashion
[08:16] Incorporating Colour into Your Life
If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my Life Satisfaction Assessment. It's a 30-minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you down. I call it Derailed and it's a fabulous place to begin a joy-at-work redesign.
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Unleashing Joy through Colour with Emma Shoe
Lucia Knight: Years ago, when I first met Emma Shoe former shoe designer for the Good and the Great and now a personal stylist for Women's Speakers, she was an absolute vision of colour.
I can see it now. Playful red heeled boots, elegant long pink trousers and a contrasting vibrant scarf that was just the right style of contrast.
I remember feeling very drawn to her and warmed to her in a second.
The Power of colour Psychology
Lucia Knight: In a recent conversation, Emma once more wowed me, this time with insights into colour psychology. And today she shares a story of a wacky colour experiment in a prison and the surprising results.
Emma has a talent for taking what seems like a complex topic, colour psychology, and making it feel super accessible, personal, and practical.
From thcolourors you wear to the spaces you work in, she gives hints on how incorporating just a smidge of colour can spark a jolt of joy, can boost your mind, and can draw people to you. What's not to love? Let's dive in.
Transformative Stories: colour in the Workplace
Lucia Knight: Emma, what impact do you believe colour can have on the joy that we feel at work?
Emma Shoe: I know it can have a huge impact. I'll give you a really quick anecdotal story. I've worked with many women in this situation. But this particular woman's sticks in my mind who I worked with, who worked for a big, huge corporation.
And she told me she used to go into work every morning and drive to work, sit in her car for a good 10 minutes and cry or get very emotional and looking at all the other women going into the office and feeling imposter syndrome, feeling like she wasn't good enough. And when I met her, she was wearing all black all the time.
And big oversized shapes, really hiding herself. And that's been very common trait with many of the midlife women that I've worked with, professional women that I've worked with they're wearing trapeze shapes, black, oversized. They're hiding. And the three women I'm thinking of, and particularly this one did a wardrobe edit with her and brought some very colourful clothes for her to try on, which felt very alien for her.
And she ended up buying this very multi coloured, beautiful, colourful, really quite loud jacket and said to me at the time I'll never wear this for work I'll just keep it for very special occasions, and I was sort of like okay noted.
And then a week later I had to go meet her at her office because I'd left something at her house And I was waiting in the car park, and she walked out wearing this technicolour coat jacket that she'd bought.
And I was like, oh my gosh, you're wearing the coat. She said, Oh, she said the first day after the, we'd worked together, I wore one of my colourful scarves and I got so many compliments and so many people kind to me and said lovely things that it, you know, within a week she had changed. Her whole demeanor and joy was something that she was now experiencing.
And I think there's the fear that if you wear colourful clothes, you're going to stand out and you're going to be a bit of a clown or people are going to not take you seriously. But I've worked with other women who've started to wear colour and feel Joy in the way they're dressing and then they do get noticed, but for all the right reasons and then they get promoted and they go, they stop for work.
And I've got a lot of examples of working with women in that way. So my bit of advice would be have a go at not wearing black top to toe, add a bit of colour.
The Impact of Colour in Your Environment
Lucia Knight: Okay so let's then think about, rather than the clothes that we're wearing and the colours that we're wearing, the environments that we're in. So many of us have hybrid working arrangements. So we work at home sometimes and that might be the corner of a kitchen, or it might be a spare bedroom, or it might be the garden shed.
What colours can we incorporate into these little working environments that can make them not feel like prisons?
Emma Shoe: Yeah. Okay, there's lots of colour psychology. It's been proven scientifically colours can raise your your dopamine. They can react with your hormones and actually elevate your mood. Okay. And likewise the opposite.
The Fascinating Story of Baker Miller Pink
Emma Shoe: My favorite colour is called Baker Miller pink.
Lucia Knight: Why is that your favourite colour?
Emma Shoe: So the story behind it is fascinating. Really quickly, a psychologist called Alexander Strauss in the late 60s started being fascinated and he was studying another psychologist who'd discovered what I just talked about, the dopamine effects.
And he was fascinated by this and he wanted to prove it at a bigger scale. So he went to this correctional facility in Seattle, ran by these two directors called Baker and Miller, hence the name. And he asked them to do an experiment. And the experiment was to paint these prison cells, this particular shade of pink. And it proved that within 15 minutes, the people that were being incarcerated incidents of violence and aggression dissipated.
So it was proven that by painting these prisons, and then lots of other prisons got painted this beautiful colour. And it's a really beautiful colour.
And so what I would say to people is, even though There are, there is colour psychology and you could look up the colour that most resonates with how you want to feel.
It ultimately comes down to what you love and what lifts your soul and brings joy to you. Don't go for what the scientists say is the right colour to paint the room.
I think do what, makes your heart sing and what you want to look at every day and it makes, lifts you, gives you energy.
Lucia Knight: So you're making me think.
The Impact of Black in Fashion
Lucia Knight: I'm going back to what you said about black. Yeah, and when I met you however many years ago, yeah, you have been inspiring me and encouraging me to wear far less black. Tell me what's wrong with black.
Emma Shoe: Okay. So black. Oh I now know have no black in my wardrobe. And if I had to do a job recently in hospitality, I did a day somewhere and I had to wear black and I literally was like, I cannot put it on my body. It drains me energetically.
It's the absence of light in black, so it symbolizes mystery and it also symbolizes formality and obviously lots of people think it's very sophisticated and it's slimming, which is just so many other ways to wear colour and, I personally think black in women may be different in men, but for women of a certain age, to me, from my experience with all the women that I've styled, it symbolizes giving up.
Lucia Knight: It symbolizes what? I've given
Emma Shoe: I've given up in that. I'm stuck. I don't care anymore. And it's a default and it's a quick, easy win.
Now, there are exceptions to this. So if you have your colours analyzed, and I can do that for you. We drape you and we look at your colour season. There is one season, which is winter that actually wears black very well, especially against his or her face and will illuminate his or her skin tone and give you a youthful glow.
But for most other people who don't fall into that category, if you put black against your face, it lets you drain the colour. It will age you. And if you see the photos, it's really. It's undeniable. It's really amazing. It's not to say you can never wear black, but not against your face.
Someone said to me recently, I've got rid of all black from my wardrobe now and only wear colour. It doesn't just change how you feel, but it changes how people around you behave.
I've got a coat. It is the Baker Miller pink coat. And whenever I wear that, whatever else I'm wearing, I could be wearing my dog walking clothes and I chuck that coat on and I will get compliments.
And I'll get strangers coming up to me going, I just must say, I love your coat, you look so, I know a lot of people don't necessarily want that attention, but It gives you joy through your day, to go through your day and have a brief conversation with a stranger. And I will do the same.
I'll go up to people in the street and go, I love your coat or your stuff or your lipstick or whatever.
Incorporating colour into Your Life
Lucia Knight: Okay so if someone at home is listening and they want to somehow incorporate a little bit more colour into their work life, where can they start next week?
Emma Shoe: Okay. So what you can do in your home is, or in your office at home, is even if you don't want to paint the walls or change the colour scheme, I would say just get a lovely print or photo and have it hanging up behind you like now, like all the things behind me, all my trinkets that I collect and they just give me joy just to look at and just to have around me.
Even having a nice glass to drink from. It's all very visceral. So that's one way.
And then the other way from a dressing point of view is even glasses. My gorgeous pink glasses have been misplaced, but I have these amazing pink flock glasses. I don't know if you remember those.
And, you know, for people who wear glasses, earrings, jewelry. Scarves, even lipstick. And then for men, the obvious one is a tie, if you're still wearing a tie. Or, I don't know, just even a handkerchief in your pocket. Who does that anymore either? But, shoes! Shoes and socks is a really good way for a man to express himself with colour.
Conclusion and Next Steps
Lucia Knight: If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my Life Satisfaction Assessment. It's a 30 minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you down. I call it Derailed. It's a fabulous place to begin a joy at work redesign.
