The London Lounge

There is plenty of debatable theory on this subject: People with blonde hair and blue eyes should wear certain colors; people with brown hair and light skin should use some different colors.

What is your take on the use and coordination of colors, for instance shirt and tie coordination?

I have noticed that women with green eyes, fair skin and and auburn hair especially benefit from certain colour combinations (burnt orange, dusty green). presumably the same holds true for other complexions and for men too but, maybe, for men, less noticeably.
NJS

My take is that this sort of thing applies mostly to cheap department store RTW items.

It the cloth is the highest quality ie the dyes used are quality, and in rich shades of colours then as long as the garment fits perfectly, you can almost wear whatever colour you like. You could pick a cloth at random from the Acorn, Harrison's or Lesser books and it would be fine on anyone.

Sator wrote:My take is that this sort of thing applies mostly to cheap department store RTW items.

It the cloth is the highest quality ie the dyes used are quality, and in rich shades of colours then as long as the garment fits perfectly, you can almost wear whatever colour you like. You could pick a cloth at random from the Acorn, Harrison's or Lesser books and it would be fine on anyone.

Put navy blue on a green-eyed girl and you'll see my point - well, you should!!!!!!!
NJS

There is much to be said about certain things looking better or worse on people with certain complexions. Flusser has a great section in one of his books about this. There are several places where he has gentlemen wearing contrasting clothes. The differences are interesting.

Having said that, fortunately I am average enough that I can get away with most anything and I do not fit into any of Flusser's categories. Thanks to custom tailoring, most of my most discernable flaws are masked. My general rule of thumb is that, at a certain point, through trial/experiment, you discern what does/doesn't work. When you have an idea about what works - dress.

After you dress - look in a full length mirror. Be a critical - not narcissistic. Does what you are wearing work? Does it please your eye? If so - then off. If not - then try again.

It's like the old saw, "if you have to ask your wife if this tie looks good with this outfit, then you already know the answer."

Happy dressing!

Trey

storeynicholas wrote:Put navy blue on a green-eyed girl and you'll see my point - well, you should!!!!!!!
NJS

All men and women can wear navy lounge suit as long as the garment fits perfectly. I would not recommend that a green eye woman wear a green lounge suit to a job interview.

If women want to match the colour of their cloths to their eyes let them. Let us discuss menswear.

Trey wrote:There is much to be said about certain things looking better or worse on people with certain complexions. Flusser has a great section in one of his books about this. There are several places where he has gentlemen wearing contrasting clothes. The differences are interesting.

Having said that, fortunately I am average enough that I can get away with most anything and I do not fit into any of Flusser's categories. Thanks to custom tailoring, most of my most discernable flaws are masked.

Yes, if you go the bespoke route, it matters very little as long as your garments fit perfectly, and are cut off a classical pattern out of the finest cloth. It becomes a bit of a waste of time fussing like women do about colour charts or Flusser's ideas about high, medium, and low contrast complexions etc etc. I am supposed to be a high contrast type but have long discovered this paradigm is a waste of time for bespoke commissions. Flusser's ideas do help however, to make ready to wear department store garments look less awful on you.

Sator wrote:My take is that this sort of thing applies mostly to cheap department store RTW items.

To me that is a very limited view. I mean, colors just as cut and fit, are a part of elegance.

Gruto wrote:

Sator wrote:My take is that this sort of thing applies mostly to cheap department store RTW items.

To me that is a very limited view. I mean, colors just as cut and fit, are a part of elegance.

I think what Sator is trying to say is that if conventional and traditional colours are chosen, and cut and fitted properly, then colour coordination as a concept need not be terribly particular or esoteric.

As you brought up in your first post, in regards to shirt and tie, and indeed an entire ensemble, there must be some thought put into colour coordination to achieve an elegant outcome. However, there is no need to lock oneself into certain colours just because a chart or self professed expert advises such. Of course, some colours will work better on some than others - this is all a part of learning what works and what doesn't.

pvpatty wrote: I think what Sator is trying to say is that if conventional and traditional colours are chosen, and cut and fitted properly, then colour coordination as a concept need not be terribly particular or esoteric.

Yes, exceptionally well put.

I must confess I went through a period where I fussed like women do about colour, colour charts, high/medium/low contrast complexions etc. I read avidly on the subject. I considered countless colours, and shades of colour, and worried endlessly if they were suitable for me.

One day I managed to get hold of some shirting fabric on sale that was good quality but which the colour charts etc would not permit me to wear. My shirtmaker found the cloth to be excellent quality and when I expressed my concern over the colour, he said to me that if a garment is well made and of the finest cloth, you can just about forget about the colour. The finest cloth is made with the finest dyes, he said - not cheap dyes with harsh colours.

He was right. Since then I've given up fussing over colour charts and the like.

I think there are to aspects here. One regards conventions: black shoes with a dark blue suit in town, even if certain shades of brown may accord better with blue. The other one is aesthetic: mostly the Italian sartorial paradigm.
I agree we needn't walk around with a colour chart and keep checking if should walk on the right sidewalk, where the building is painted grey, or on the left sidewalk, where the facade is beige, because we are wearing a brown suit today. However, if you go to a RTW shop and ask for blue shirts, you will probably be presented with two or three shades of blue. If you go to a cloth shop and ask to see blue shirtings, you may well be presented with a dozen if not more shades of blue, each different from each other. Not all of them will work well for any given individual, regardless of the tie and suit colour.
I once bought a pale pink that I liked very much. I had a shirt made of it and it made my face look icteric. I gave the remaining cloth to my mother to have a couple of blouses made and, as she has a lighter complexion, the pale pink looked excellent on her. It was not a feminine colour, it simply clashed with the hue of my complexion.
I would put it this way: MOST conservative colours will look good on any man, but SOME will look terrible on a given individual and must be avoided.

I would add that a good tailor or shirtmaker should be able to advise you if in doubt as to the suitability of a given colour. Before bespeaking a suit I always ask if the colour, unless it is a go-with-everything grey, will agree with my complexion. I remember a former tailor, many years ago, strongly discouraging me from choosing a particular tweed, which looked lovely in the swatch book, because of my complexion.

In the end, I tend to stay with traditional colours; most of my shirts are some form of simple (which does not preclude boldness) stripe, mostly blues with a few dark reds. I have on order a multiple stripe in blue and yellow, quite a departure from the usual, but which should go well with a navy blazer. My ties also are mostly navy and red/maroon, with small patterns.

By keeping to a limited range of colours and patterns, I find I do not have to face agonizing choices ( )when getting ready.

Frog in Suit

Sator wrote: I've given up fussing over colour charts and the like.

I don't fuss over colour charts. I fuss over elegance. To dimiss colour and colour coordination in relation to elegance is like judging a movie on the narrative only - not the integration of angles, sounds, actors etc. In other words, you got to look at the whole picture.

I don't fuss over colour charts. I fuss over elegance. To dimiss colour and colour coordination in relation to elegance is like judging a movie on the narrative only - not the integration of angles, sounds, actors etc. In other words, you got to look at the whole picture.

I hope you all will forgive me for digging out some of these older posts but having been away from the LL for nearly four months, I have a bit of catching up to do.

Gruto, I have to say you are right and Sator is far from being wrong. I think the reaction is more against a Flusser color scheme that is simply preposterous. Color does matter, shirt and tie color. The suit is the frame of the painting, not the painting. As such just about any color can work for a man’s skin color etc. as long as the fit is immaculate and the shirt and tie (the painting) is dialed in.

As an example, my favorite suit color is light gray and as a fair skinned blond this color is supposedly verboten. Many years ago I brought home a lovely light gray suit. My wife, who now knows better, said, “lovely, but it isn’t your color at all.” A few weeks later we went to lunch. It probably was the massive dose of Billecart Salmon but she gave me that “you look great!” kind of a look. When I reminded her that I was wearing the gray death suit, she smiled and gave me the next look in the wifely register and that is “so, how do you do it?” The answer was the very light blue shirt and navy tie that gave my face plenty of color. If you choose your painting well, you can wear any color suit.

Cheers

Gruto wrote:What is your take on the use and coordination of colors?

1 – The colors next to the face are the most important.
2 – Level of contrast is important.
3– Saturation of the color is important (from muted and light to deep and rich).
4 – I think of a color as having either a cool (blue based) or warm (yellow based) influence, e.g. cool grey versus warm grey. The visible electromagnetic spectrum shows ROYGBV’s warmth and coolness (Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Blue-Violet).
5 – The summation of everything (along with fit & silhouette) is either "you look good,” or “You don’t look good (usually silence).” Women are very good instinctively at this "blink" response. For me, if the coloring isn't "harmonious," I see more of the clothes and less of the man (i.e. something is "off" or distracting).
6 –.Men’s clothing is based on “uniforms” (Dandies excluded), and so to me is distinct from women’s in that the men’s clothes colors tend to work better with a neutral color for framing (e.g. suit, shirt) and a flashier color for accenting (e.g. tie, pocket square, shoes, watch).

- M

(Of all the sources available out there, I find that Carole Jackson’s Color for Men concepts and the good ‘ol color wheel suffice as guides to color coordination).