I’ve talked a while back about color matching clothing. I talked about the color wheel, complimentary colors and so on. This is all fine and dandy but, unless you have really good eye for colors, the info is hard to digest.
A big realization that I had was that I wasn’t thinking in terms of the color wheel anymore. I simply started to KNOW which colors go well with each-other.
More often than not, this isn’t something you think about. You just have to put the colors together and let your experience tell you if it looks good or not.
Let’s face it: color matching is hard when you look at the charts. But if you were to think the way I do, you’ll see that everything becomes child’s play.
It all starts with a single fashion item. You know, the one you’re hopelessly holding in your hand, having no idea how to match it.
Step #1: repeat colors!
I want you to look at your fashion item and study the color (or colors) on it. Whether it’s only one or if there are more of them, your goal should be the same: to repeat the color. That’s how I do it and I hope you’ll do it in the same way.
At this point, you shouldn’t care too much about shades.
If you have a green v-neck, match it with a green belt, even if the green doesn’t match. (We’re talking about casual outfits here because in case of formal outfits, you usually start with the shoes). If the v-neck is dark green and the belt is spring green, it’s still a match.
If you have a dark blue and light/medium blue polo shirt, repeat one of the 2 colors. Pair it with a blue shirt, a pair of blue jeans or a bleu pocket square.
For instance, I chose one of my pocket squares. As you can see, it has blue and brown on it:
Depending on how wide your wardrobe is, you might find more than one itme that you can match. If the color is netural medium, this won’t be a problem. However, if the color is bold, you need to be careful. You don’t wanna be dressed head-to-toe in red.
Step #2: Make contrast!
Now that you have your main color (in the same or in different shades), it’s time you add some more colors… but this time, make sure they CONTRAST.
What does that mean? It’s simple. They just need to stand out form each-other in a pleasant way.
There’s no need to remember the color wheel to do this, you can just memorize the colors (it’s easy, I promise).
If at step one you had a blue fashion item, good colors to make it contrast with are: brown, black, white, gray, red, yellow, purple and orange. That is to say, pretty much everything.
If your initial color is black, you can wear pretty much any color with it, except, maybe dark brown. The contrast isn’t that good and most men choose this coor combination anyway.
Same goes for white or gray, you can wear them with any color as well as black.
Take a look at how my white shirts makes excellent contrast with my green v-neck and my navy blue pea coat:
if the color is green, brown is always a good match. So is yellow, blue, white, gray and black.
As you can see, you can pair pretty much any 2 colors on the wheel, as long as you make sure they don’t stand out too much together. Contrasts are very easily noticeable.
Step #3: the 3-color rule is good… but be careful how you count them!
Sometimes 2 colors aren’t enough. Or you just can’t assemble an bespoke suit with just 2 colors (this is pretty tough if you’re wearing more than one pattern). That’s no problem at all, you just have to add a third color.
This is the final step, making a winning trio combination.
Let me give you the combinations that I use most often. I recommend you try all of them then, if you feel up to it, you can come up with other combinations.