Colour ought to be an absolute: if it suits, wear it; it if doesn’t, don’t. But just to make things a teensy bit more interesting, there’s the fashion factor. Cue rolling of eyes, curled lip and “I’m not the kind of moron who goes out and buys an an orange wardrobe because it was on the catwalk”.

I know – fashion be damned where something as basic as colour is concerned. I’d like to agree. But only to a degree, because you have to admit that repeated sightings this spring of cobalt blue are breaking down resistance to a colour that until very recently was better known as Tory Blue and thus confined largely to those factory-outlets beloved by coach parties and the direst bits of the school-uniform department.

Ditto all those electrifying greens and clear, blueish reds. Conversely, the soft pastels that looked so pretty ten years ago now look ageing and twee. A modern pastel – stay with me on this and you’ll thank me in the end – has a bit of dirt mixed into it. How metaphorically apt is that? And one final point: take a look at pictures from the early 1990s of Linda, Naomi and Christy wearing bright red lipstick. How sophisticated did we think they looked And how much do they remind us of Michael Jackson now? Case proven, surely.

So, colours mutate. A pink can be babyish or Barbie, or it can exude a fleshy eroticism. Some years you think you have finally grown out of black. Other years it seems like the sophisticated option again. Navy can be the colour equivalent of Sting playing his lute – horribly, catastrophically MOR – then emerge with a newly minted sharp and savvy chic, especially when it comes in the form of a patent bag.

The moral? Stay on your toes. Work out which pigments flatter your skin (the right shade should light it up without stealing all the attention), update formulations every so often and remember that a sheen or a sequin can ameliorate many a violent hue. So can wearing it as a bag (but avoid the “amusing” loud shoe, unless it’s a sandal).

What you wear with your colour can be just as important. Some complexions look better with tonal outfits; others benefit from opposite-end-of-the-spectrum contrasts. Colour Me Confident (Hamlyn £14.99), with its six basic categories – soft, clear, warm, cool, deep or light – is the kind of book that no style queen would ever admit to consulting. But it’s a useful eye-opener for the 90 per cent of us who stick to the same three colours and the other 10 per cent who wear lots of them, none of which work on them. So go forth and consult it on the quiet.

This isn’t, ecologists will be delighted to know, an exhortation to rush out and buy the latest blue/green/ neon. Nor is it a recommendation to deck yourself up like our model, unless you’d like a job as Nancy Dell’Olio’s double. Rather it’s a gentle prod to rethink the way you combine what’s already in your wardrobe. Although, if what’s in your wardrobe is exclusively black, you could think about treating yourself to something that isn’t.

Times recommends

• The pink mile: women on death row
• The top 10 richest streets in the world
• Japan's new professional seducers