Check Out Jennifer Butler’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Butler

Hi Jennifer, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My love of fashion and beauty was nurtured from a young age by my mother, who owned a fabric store in Hibbing Minnesota. In college I created a store that featured beautiful imported East Indian textiles and featured the work of local artisans. My first big job in fashion was with Bloomingdales in New York. I was very good at creating appealing vignettes on mannequins and also in “rooms” that showed an aspirational lifestyle throughout the store.

Everything in my career, education, and experience prepared me to help someone be fashionable and capture the look of the moment. But nothing I had learned prepared me to help someone find their personal style. That remained true until I was introduced the to work of Suzanne Caygill, originator of the Four Seasons Color Harmony. Looking back I can see how I was conditioned to put myself and others in a fashionable box. Suzanne taught me to recognize the soul’s inner light and a person’s Season Archetype. She transformed my own experience of myself and launched me in my life’s work. Over the past 40 years I’ve worked with more than 7,000 individual clients, helping each of them to know their unique color DNA, and. how to apply it to show up powerfully and live purposefully.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not been a smooth ride.

I had always considered myself artistic, but one day I realized that I was a true artist—an artist of color, form, and fashion. Helping my clients look and feel beautiful was my way of letting Spirit flow through me. Helping them learn about their colors was my way of supporting them to paint their own portrait, every day. And if that was truly my gift, and my artistry, I wanted to learn to do it with as much integrity and care as possible.

I just had to study with Suzanne Caygill. I called her and set up an interview.

The day of our meeting, I walked into the Beverly Hills Hotel dressed in a royal blue jacket, an acid green blouse, and a shocking pink cummerbund from India. And then, there she was, wearing a matching peridot pillbox hat, dress, and gloves. To say we were not a visual match would be a huge understatement.

After the interview, she said, “Jennifer, I appreciate your fashion background. However, it does not qualify you to do the work I’m teaching. I work with the essence of the person, not their image. Your background in retailing is a liability. It has trained you to ignore and overwrite the authentic beauty in another person. I cannot in good conscience accept you into my academy.”

I was devastated. I wanted to learn from this woman more than anything in the world. But she didn’t want to teach me.

I went back to work, but I couldn’t get Suzanne’s color harmonies out of my consciousness. About six months later, while working at Bullocks as a fashion consultant, I decided to do a “seasonal” fashion show in her honor. I called her to see if she’d be interested in helping me coordinate the show, and to my great surprise, she agreed. This was her chance to introduce her book and teachings to a larger audience.

“Here’s my big chance to connect with her,” I thought.

The show went well, and I felt like I was able to establish a rapport with her that we hadn’t found during our first meeting. Afterwards, Elliot (with whom I was still friends, despite our breakup) suggested that we go together to get our palettes done with Suzanne. I’d already had my palette done ten times by various other “professionals” at that point. All of those palettes were different, and Elliot had been typed as three different Seasons. What did we have to lose?

That session with Suzanne felt like my first experience of being truly seen. She identified me as a Winter, as Janet had previously, with gold as my eye color, bright red as my “romantic” color, and jade green as my Power Color. None of these were colors I had been given before, by anyone. I was enthralled.

As I absorbed my new palette in the subsequent weeks, I thought about how much more “me” I felt. I also thought about all the colors I’d worn in my life: the pink, beige, and taupe that were my mother’s essence, and that I took on in tandem with my harmonizing role in my family as an only girl with five brothers. I remembered the orange and brown color schemes of 1970s fashion that I’d worn to fit in at school. I remembered the lime green and hot pink I’d worn to my first interview with Suzanne, intending to demonstrate my knowledge of fashion and color balance. But none of those colors were mine.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am an expert in the the Psychology of Color and Style.

Jennifer Butler is the world’s leading expert in the sociology of style and color. Her love and talent for fash- ion began in her mother’s Hibbing, MN fabric store and expanded in college where demand for her exotic, imported clothing led her to open a small boutique called Piece of Mind. Her design work and entrepreneur- ship won her the honor of being named one of Glamour magazine’s Top Ten College Girls of 1969. It also led to a feature article and photo in Women’s Wear Daily.
Later, as a stylist at Vogue Patterns, Jennifer’s thoughtful approach to fashion helped extend her color and design work internationally. This included a collaboration with color forecaster June Roche, corporate fashion director for Milliken, one of the country’s largest textile manufacturers and dye mills. Together they created a color symposium that reached more than six thousand of the top designers in the automotive, interior, and fashion industries.
After moving to Los Angeles, Jennifer had the privilege of studying with leading color theorist, Suzanne Caygill, founder of the four-season color harmony theory. With her advanced understanding of the psychology of color and her fashion expertise she created Jennifer Butler Living Color, Inc., and founded the True Beauty Movement.
Over the course of her career, Jennifer has helped more than seven thousand clients—ranging from CEOs and business executives to celebrities, artists, and community leaders—to powerfully, authentically, and effectively express themselves.
Jennifer shares her individualized approach to color and fashion globally as a talented speaker and educator. She is the author of Reinventing Your Style: 7 Strategies for Looking Dynamic, Powerful, and Inspiring.
She earned her B.A. degree in sociology with an art history minor at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and studied spiritual psychology at University of Santa Monica.
Learn more and book your Color DNA Palette session at jenniferbutlercolor.com.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
Advice for those just starting out:

* Make a commitment to do what you love.
* Get as much training as you can from a mentor or teacher who inspires you.
* Commit to mastery and practice constantly.
* Embrace the color harmonies and design silhouettes that Mother Nature gave you.
* Acknowledge your innate beauty and worth.

When you do these things, you come into your full power and give others permission to do the same.

What I wish I had known when I was just starting out:

I wish I had known to set my ego aside and be a neutral third party observer — to be less defensive and always ask myself, what is the Universe trying to teach me here? It took me quite a while (and three years at the University of Santa Monica Masters Program in Spiritual Psychology) to learn that!

And I wish I had understood that when we are fully expressed as the work of art Mother Nature intended, we vibrate at our highest frequency and connect authentically. To me, that’s Peace on Earth.

Pricing:

• Monthly memberships from $50
• Private Color Consultations
• Group or Private Shopping
• Interiors
• Call 323.931.2626 for pricing

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jenniferbutlercolor.com
• Instagram: JenniferButlerColor
• Facebook: @JenniferButlerColor
• Youtube: JenniferButlerColor

Image Credits
Before and After Images by Mikel Healy

Images of Jennifer Butler by Siddiqi Ray