You can wear damn near any color with any other color, provided you pick the right shades and saturations. You can wear maroon with purple, if said maroon is more brown than red and said purple had a reddish cast in it and is somewhat muted. A true purple or a bluish purple, or an intense, jewel-tone type purple of any shade will look hideous with maroon. But one really oughtn’t wear mix-and-match velvet. The texture is overwhelming.
Color theory is much easier to show than to write, so I’d suggest finding somewhere that has art or quilting classes and asking if you can sit in on the part about color theory. Or look for some nice art theory books at the library.
My skin is crawling more about the velvet than the colours to be honest. I HATE velvet, it gives me goosebumps!
Black goes with anything, including brown. Black and brown can look very classy, if done by Balenciaga, and like you picked up the wrong purse, shoes and belt if you do it wrongly. Black and purple looks really gorgeous.
I have dark olive skin, dark brown hair and brown eyes, so I wear a lot of bright, jewel toned colours (turquoise, pink, red, green), because they make me feel happy, and I don’t have to worry about looking washed out. I look absolutely awful in pastels and anything cream or yellow. Obviously those rules won’t apply for people with different colouring.
There are plenty of “dress for success” and “colour me beautiful” type books about. Just make sure you look at ones written in the past few years, as older ones will be all about what kind of blue eyeshadow and frosted pink lipstick will go with your heavily shoulder-padded powersuit.
Next time you’re not sure of an outfit, put it on the bed and lay alternatives around it. That way you’ll immediately see which pieces “pop” when they’re beside each other, and which ones clash or look muted.
The other comment that should be made is that the amount of color makes a difference. A purple sweater over a red turtleneck , so that all that is really seen is the neck portion probably looks fine. A small amount of a bright color can be used as an accent.
(I hate to commit myself to liking an outfit I’ve not seen. Also, I’m not sure I’m really the best source of what colors go together. And thirdly, I enjoy twickster’s posts so I want to believe she knows what she looks good in.)
On the other hand, a purple shirt and a maroon skirt probably contain too much of their respective colors to avoid the box of crayons look.
But, to a certain extent, the difference between looking bright and flamboyant and having a style all one’s own, and looking bright and clueless and uncoordinated, is not so much color choice on any particular day, but the confidence with which you wear the outfit. (IMHO, YMMV, and if someone you trust to have fashion sense and to tell you the truth tells you not to wear a particular combination, don’t wear it.)
Yeah, it’s just a splash of red – and the purple is a clear, jewel-toned purple. My coloring is similar to irishgirl’s, and it sounds like we wear a lot of the same things – lots of clear, rich, saturated colors. I have an entire closet filled with sweaters, sorted by color – the “pinks and purples” shelf is particularly vibrant (the reds are up with the blacks, whites, and black-and-whites).
I’m willing to wear some rather odd color combos, though – purple and turquoise, for instance. If they’re both clear tones of similar saturations though, as CrazyCatLady says, it can work. I’m confident in my eye, though – I’m not gonna tell you to put just any turquoise with any purple.
No, really, purple and turquoise looks good. It does!
Great idea, Eureka! I have found it! I decided to pair the long maroon skirt with a plain black top. It’s one of the most beautiful skirts you ever saw. It’s a warm reddish maroon lycra velvet with a million vertical crinkles, and lace trim at the hem. It’s so attractive on its own, obviously the rest has to be understated. Too bad it isn’t mine — I’m borrowing it.
There is hope for me, since I intuited that something was wrong with my first idea, I just needed to get it clear in my understanding. irishgirl, my complexion is the same as yours. Mediterranean. I like the jewel tones too, but black is always my friend. I bought a bunch of pastel things with the beginning of spring, but haven’t worn them yet. Maybe I should stay with black all year round, but the arrival of beautiful spring weather made me think of bright colors. I even bought white. I can’t believe I did that. I don’t know when I’ll ever get up the nerve to wear white. White can be excellent with Mediterranean looks. But black is so much easier to put together.
My quasi-“Goth” style isn’t sexy Goth, don’t get the wrong impression. It’s almost always very demure and understated, sultry but modest: think of a Goth nun, that’s me. I don’t do the pasty pale face thing. My foundation was carefully chosen to match my olive complexion, not to lighten it. Darker is better as far as I’m concerned.
Eyeshadow… that’s a whole other thread in itself. Will I ever be saved from eyeshadow despair? Mine is purple. Please don’t laugh. Purple works for me, I think…
While I’m sure you look fine, I find jewel-tone on jewel-tone to look very dated–at least with some of the pairings I see on older, style-challenged women here in Baltimore. Red and purple or purle and turquoise separates? Not in a million years.
Now see, in a '60s-influenced pattern, I think these colors can go just fine together. Think micro-mini skirt and a beehive 'do (and some shiny vinyl boots). Not so much with the coat and scarf, though.
Purple eyeshadow is GOOD on people with brown eyes! It makes the color “pop” more. Plum eyeliner is good for a smokey look, better than black or brown. Violet is good for when you want something light and fun. I have an extremely sheer violet that I wear a lot - I love it.
Another thing to keep in mind…when you’re talking purple and maroon, the problem lies in the amount of red vs. blue in the purple. Maroon has much more red. That’s what makes it look funky. Same with yellow-green vs. blue-green. For me, anyway.
Lime green, bright green, orange, and shocking pink are in this season (she says morosely). Together. In loud patterns.
Also those damn short frilly skirts are back.
I think you could maybe wear wine and purple together without it clashing, depending on the tones, but you’d probably be lost in the colour intensity, and it would look a bit silly. It might work in a bedleh or other dance costume, though. I wear all kinds of red-through-purple, but only with black or a neutral. And yes, I am sort of a goth. Also I look stupid in pastels.
<< unobtrusively picks up umbrella and holds it at side, ready to unfurl >>
personally, one of my favorite combinations is purple and green.
<< unfurls umbrella, waits for barrage of vegetable matter to subside. >>
seriously!
<< furls umbrella again when pelting finally lets up >>
believe it or not, these colors were the height of fashion when paired together in the 1700s. i’ve made it my personal pleasure to revive the combination. it really does work quite nicely – assuming that you keep the color values close together, as others have already mentioned. a strong, dark purple goes nicely with a darkish green, maybe one that tends to be a bit tweedy (e.g., black flecks mixed in). mid-range purple goes well with hunter green. pastels of each? sure, why not? (as long as the green doesn’t slide into the yellow-y, chartreuse shades – more like a light grass green.)
would love to see some of the looks on other posters’ faces right about now.
Hey, I had a very purple-heavy abstract picture hanging over my green couch, till the cats knocked it off the wall and destroyed it, and it looked absolutely smashing. Like I said, you can put any color with any other color if you’re careful about your shades.
All right, give me color advice (let me see if I’ve been doing stuff right!).
I am of German, Polish and Slovak extract. I am the whitest person I’ve ever seen; extremely pale even in summer. It seems like I have a pink undertone to my skin (that’s what the lady at Origins said). My eyes are grey with a bright orange ring around the pupil and so look like green from a distance. My hair is naturally a light-medium brown with a lot of red tones in it.
So what colors should I gravitate towards in clothing and makeup?
I have very similar coloring, zweis, and I wear a lot of blues (just about any shade) and aquas, pinks with brown or purple casts to them like dusty rose or fuschia (orangey shades like peach are all right, but not nearly so flattering), and burgundies or maroons. I can also pull off a variety of colors I don’t especially care for, like olive green, mustard yellow, and that neonish lime green color I call electric snot. Black is all right on me, but pure, stark white makes me look like a week-old corpse. Creams and tans are much more flattering.
It sounds like we have really similar coloring, except my eyes really are green and my hair’s a shade darker so the red is more auburn. I don’t tan at all in the summer – I get a little rosier and glow a bit, but don’t need to switch my foundation.
Anyway, I wear a lot of colors in mid-range tones, not pastel or jeweltones, but in between. I’ve discovered that I look really good in pink, especially when combined with dark chocolate brown as an accent color. Blues are great, too, except the darker ones; navy does something especially weird. Khaki-ish greens I wear to pick up on my eyes, but I’m not too fond of them.
I wear black, but it has to be broken up with something else or else it washes me out: pinstripes, some sort of print, a flattering scarf near my face. Charcoal is better than pure black, really. For other darker colors, I wear brick reds, plums, and warm grays. Warm colors are better than cool ones.
I tend to avoid pastels because I am a staining machine. The one real deviation from the usual colors I wear is my winter coat: BRIGHT pink velvet trenchcoat, which I wear with a BRIGHT green, burnt orange, brick red, and black plaid scarf and plummy/burgundy gloves. I look flippin’ magnificent in that coat, and it’s wonderful in winter when everything’s drab.
As for makeup, I rock the “natural” look, so I wear shimmery pinks and browns for eyeshadow, tinted moisturizer-y foundation, lip gloss, and maybe mascara. I’ve no idea what colors I should be wearing, because I don’t really wear colors on my face.
I would also love for someone to tell me if I’m headed in entirely the wrong direction with regards to color.
Actually, I was going to suggest the same thing. I tend not to wear this combo (when I pay much attention to what I’m wearing–i.e., when I’m dressing up) because organgey tones flatter me better. But I love that color combination.
I’ve seen some great clothes–including this one truly breathtaking salwar kameez one time–that used deep purple and forest green together.
I was just complaining about this today. Last weekend, I bought the best shorts ever. They’re dark olive. Now, tell me, what goes with that? I gave up and wore a white t-shirt with them, but I’ll bet I could do better. (And I got them because I love seeing men in dark olive slacks, but they always wear white shirts with them. :/)
