How we measure colour

Shops label colours loosely. On big sites, a “purple” filter often returns burgundy, navy or a print. Off the Grey ignores the label and measures the photo.

Every morning

1. We download product feeds from retailers through the Awin affiliate network.
2. For each jacket or coat, we remove the background from the product photo and group the remaining pixels into colour clusters.
3. The largest cluster becomes the garment’s colour, recorded as lightness, chroma (how vivid) and hue angle in the CIE LCh colour space.
4. Each colour page has a measured range. Products inside it are listed, closest match first.

The two scores

Match (on colour pages) says how close a product sits to the centre of that colour’s range. 100 is dead centre.

Unusual-colour score (0–100) is high when a colour is vivid and rare for its category. A lime puffer scores high; a navy one scores low.

Limits

Photos vary with lighting and screens. Velvet, satin and shiny fabrics look lighter in highlights and darker in folds. Prints and colour-blocked pieces are judged on their main colour only. Always check the shop’s photos and returns policy.

How we make money

When you buy through a link here, the shop may pay us a commission. It costs you nothing extra and never changes the order of products, which is set by the measured colour. Affiliate disclosure.