OPINION - Summer shagger or winter wonder — what’s your hottest season?

Getting your colours done is back in favour — did you know? The trend once popularised by 1980s housewives and Bridget Jones’s mum has made a grand return in the identity-obsessed age of TikTok. Celebrities such as Robert Pattinson and Blackpink’s Lisa have hopped on the bandwagon, undergoing colour analysis to learn their true “season”. According to the “methodology”, holding various shades up to your face should help decipher your matching colour palette and therefore which shades of clothing and make-up suit you best. You could be a cool or a deep winter, a bright or a light spring, a soft autumn, a warm autumn, et cetera, et cetera. But these chumps are getting it all wrong. When it comes to attractiveness, the most revealing, useful information of all has nothing to do with this Pantone pantomime. It’s not about which “season” has the shades that match you best. It’s about the season in which you are the most shaggable. People don’t want to accept this fact because they want to believe they’re shaggable all year round. Maybe you are, stud! But whether you’re shaggable was never the question. It’s about when you’re most shaggable. Locked in, thriving, full potential harnessed, running the game. That feeling where you can sniff the change of the leaves in the air and know, privately, that your time is nigh. Someone could be the most beautiful person in the world and still have a sub-optimal season. It affects us all. Yes, even Bella Hadid. I can tell I’m losing you so let me present some notable examples. Kate Winslet, one of the most beautiful women ever to have existed, is a tried-and-tested, through-and-through winter. Even when bundled up in an awful scarf and hat, as she is in much of that scourge of Christmastime viewing, The Holiday, she is radiant. A generational winter, Winslet was born to weather the cold. Her ancestors donned heavy pelts and huddled around open fires, their perfect cupid’s bows resplendent in the light of licking flames. A man for one seasonThis is the case for many “winters”. If you are still able to be handsome or comely while bundled up in a bajillion layers, that’s you. Does something just click when you pull on that pair of 40-denier tights? Do you look almost suspiciously good when pairing a knitted jumper with an old reliable work shirt? Does the whisper of dragon’s breath in a warmly lit smoking area really do something for your bone structure?Fittingly, The Holiday is also a perfect example of someone in their suboptimal season — and that person is Jude Law. “But Jude Law is hot in The Holiday!” you cry. I place a finger on your childish, unrefined lips. This may be so. But he’s not as hot as he is in The Talented Mr Ripley, is he? And why? Don’t make me say it on my own: Law is a summer. Here it’s important to note that Law has a similar build and skin tone (plus distinct British sensibility) to Winslet. Because it’s not about height or weight or skin colour or dental history: this is a highly unscientific practice based entirely on vibes. Are you getting it yet?The Holiday: Cameron Diaz and Jude Law in the festive romanceColumbia Pictures/Press handoutIt’s also not just about looks. There’s something specific about the energy you exude. Are you a dependable figure to cosy up to and hunker down with throughout the harsh winter months? Are you someone who carries all the promise of spring, the intrigue of autumn? Or are you a person who is as loose as your linens — aka the perfect summer shag? In The Talented Mr Ripley, Law is a sun- and booze-soaked rake gallivanting around Ischia, getting local girls pregnant while wearing impeccable shirts. That’s prime summer shagger behaviour. Exuding winter shag energyDon’t get me wrong, it doesn’t mean the autumn/winter crew don’t have game. Pattinson himself exudes winter shag energy (something that Korean colour match test could never tell him) and he had hundreds of thousands of women kissing posters in their bedrooms for the best half of the 2010s. Figuring out which season you are is important for several reasons. One, you can treat it like an ovulation window for when you are most able to score. And, by extension, the rest of the time becomes your off-season. This means you can suspend trivial pursuits like gym-going and leg-shaving and instead focus on spending time with friends and family. Think of it as a personal hibernation. Anti-optimisation. Then, as your peak approaches, you can prepare. For “winters”, this might involve a long, painstaking search for the perfect coat. Autumn and spring types will have to think deeply about the importance of layering, while summers may engage in the usual tanning and toning rituals, selecting sandals and splurging on pedicures. Then, once comfortably settled in your season, it’ll be a feeding frenzy.Aligning yourself with your true season frees you of the usual societal expectations to look good at certain times of the year. “Beach body ready” is a ridiculous sentiment but especially when your natural apex is Christmas party season. And finally, it helps you align with the types of people you want to pursue: that cute person from the club might be someone to put in your pocket until next April, while you could get cracking on Callum from accounts as early as Q1. The circadian rhythms of sexiness are calling to you; you need only to listen.Maddy Mussen is a features writer at The London Standard