Right Tie, Wrong Shirt

I have mentioned in the past but I cant say it enough that contrast is generally your friend. Colors of items can match yet if you group too many of the same color together invariably one or the other item will look wrong.

Here is an example of the colors being correct but the applications being wrong. Rust and orange, works with black and nicely so, yet the use of the rust tie here together with the rust colored check shirt will leave you wanting.

Better in the same pattern is the green shirt, which works well with the black jacket and the contrasting rust tie. The square has a little bit of everything in it so thats no problem.

You might feel that this square is too closely color related to the rust tie and I wont disagree, so to change that you have this square.

Finally, if you absolutely love that orange shirt, change the tie so that you gain your contrast in other ways as so:

Incidentaly, my first Orange Shirt writeup 🙂 at least the first tag created for an orange shirt that is. Kewl!

Sully…I Lied

Who can forget that line from the Ahhhnold Classic, Commando:

“Sully, remember when I told you I would kill you last?  I lied”

Well I didn’t  lie intentionally here and I never meant that the Tie by Tie posts would take precedence over everything and in fact I did start with the retakes but today a customer asked me a question pertaining to a black suit being worn to the Company Holiday Party with this tie and this square.  I have already illustrated how a black suit works well with the Tie and square in More on Black and Orange .  Here the question was what color shirt might I pair with this.

Figuring that white was too plain for the party and would also not get much use afterwards, and cream was just a step away from white I suggested a mint green shirt or a shirt with green Stripes:

Here is the result (and I didnt have a great minty colored shirt for this other than the kids shirt which didnt photograph well enough to show the color.).  The green striped Hickey Freeman His First shirt shows enough of the concept that Black and Green works well and orange blends in nicely.  To get a good feel for the combo I have also included a High res Link.

As always I welcome thoughts and comments.

Which is the sum of these parts:

This link will take you to the High res.  I think its worth a gander.

Finally, here is the mint.  This particular mint was too pale.  A solid darker mint will really give this tie a new dimension.

Goes with Black

Some comment over on Ask Andy prompted this series of shots.

All of the shirts are shot with a black suit and the black based version of this square:

What is interesting is that you can look at the many colors of the square that I have in the last photo and get a feel for what will go against black.  Since there are so many colors in the square with a black field its safe to say that they all blend well with black.

Didnt shoot white which is a no brainer nor did I shoot grey which as I mentioned earlier is in the black family.

Lavendar (Lilac)

Pink

Light Blue

Burgundy and Blue

Green Pinstripe

The Square Colors Closeup

Can’t See The Suit for the Trees

Recognising that in that last post confusing brown we introduced some very earth tone combinations i.e. the brown with the green stripe shirt, I wanted to try and pull a bit away from being confused with a tree by bringing in a light blue and some other bright colors.  True, that blues and reds would technically qualify as “earth tones”  but they arent quite something that you would expect to see up in a tree…

Here is the shirt/Suit in question, Brown for Bark, Green for leaves (incidentally most of the shirts pictured below and in the preceeding post were Hickey Freeman His First shirts that I borrowed from our Kids Shop…)  Certainly somewhat treelike:

Throwing in some Light Blue in the tie and red in the square (Speckled with Blue and trimmed with Green mind you) which IMO works well will give you this look:

Which is the sum of these parts:

Away from the blue tie and with a brown tie to complement the suit your look will be this, a nice look:

Moving somewhat away from the darkish Green shirt we use another shirt that we highlighted last post.  This has some purple and some green in it on an off  white field and with the same square and green tie (now that we have broken away from the dark green we can afford the green tie)  we get a look like this:

Here the shirt and tie match well together and come back to the suit in complementary colors.

Incidentally its the sum of these parts.  As you can see, there is NOTHING here that doesnt coordinate.

I also put it together with another patterned green tie and to be honest I find the sage color in this tie a little too “meh” in this combination , not standing out enough against the shirt so while the tie in and of itself is nice its not enough here.

Finally, coming fully away from the green shirt we bring yet another shirt from yesterdays post which in and of itself brings out what we have been saying all along, Brown and Blue go really well together.  Coupled with the Satin fielded Rectangular patterns tie you get this look:

Swapping out the red square for a navy and golden brown (still not on the site yet) will give you this:

Which is the sum of these parts:

As a final note its important to mention that in earthy combinations like the ones above, skin tone i.e. complexion will play a massive role.