Mandy Moore
is a Deep Autumn.

Deep Autumn asks for depth first and warmth second, and Mandy supplies both without effort. Her coloring is dark enough to hold a serious, saturated color, a pale palette would simply out-lighten her hair and eyes and leave the clothes doing nothing, but the darkness is golden rather than cool, which rules the Winter palettes out and rules the rich earth shades in. Burnt orange is the single clearest proof: the tangerine Ralph Lauren column she wore to the NAACP Image Awards is one of her most photographed looks precisely because the color and her skin run on the same current, and her eyes go a shade warmer against it. Wine and deep tomato reds do the same job with more drama, the red ruffled gowns of her This Is Us press years sit right at her depth. Moss and forest green pull the olive in her skin forward in the best way, and antique gold, the champagne-gold sequin gown she wore to the Oscars, reads like an extension of her own coloring rather than a costume. Espresso, chocolate, rust, teal, and warm cream round out the palette; gold jewellery over silver, always.

Deep Winter is the obvious rival, because her darkness is genuinely dark, dark hair, near-black eyes, real contrast against her skin. But Winter depth is icy and hers is golden. Put her in a blue-red or a stark black-and-white pairing and the warmth in her skin has nothing to answer it: the jaw goes slightly grey, the face reads tired rather than sharp. Her eyes settle the argument, they are a warm coffee-brown with amber in them, not the cool espresso-black of a true Winter, and her hair lifts red-gold in the sun, never blue-black. The other direction is Soft Autumn, and it fails on volume. Soft Autumn is warmth with the saturation turned down, dusty sage, mushroom, muted rose, and shades that quiet swallow her. Her coloring is too deep and too saturated for a greyed palette; she needs wine, not dusty rose, and moss at full depth, not sage. Warm and deep, not cool and deep, and never warm and faded.