The Art of Wearing Colours: Matching (or Non-Matching) Tones

I have mentioned over the past couple of weeks the relevance and importance of the tones of colours in the outfits which you construct. This is important for many different reasons.

First, I would like to reiterate that tones are the various shades which a colour can take. Many examples can be taken from nature. For example, if you look at the picture below. This image shows multiple tones of blue. The sort of deeper blue and oceanic blue in contrast to the very light, pale blue which composes the sky.

Layered over this is multiple different colours of purple. The clouds in the sky have a pink tinge to them which only increase towards the left of the photo. This is because of the sunset, which is adding pinks, reds and yellows into the sky and influencing the colour of clouds. Additionally, though the second mountain range in the background is also a purple colour. This is a deeper purple colour and it is this tonal distinction which visually allows the mountains to be separated from the clouds.

The purpose of including this image is to show the wide variety of tones which a single colour can take and how these tones can complement each other. This photo would not be nearly as nice if the water and the sky were the same colour and blended nor if the mountains and the clouds blended. People like things to be outlined and this is something that tones in colours allow for.

Clothing works on the same parameter. Matching tonal colours in your outfits can bring a layer of sophistication and coordination to any outfit which will make it seem incredibly sophisticated and will make the colours appear to match at a higher level.

An example of this is the opening photo for this post. In this photo, you can see a purple cardigan. I like this cardigan. The colour is very nice – a lilac purple. Very subdued and works well with lots of the darker-toned pieces which I have. The cardigan is also a tied cardigan, where you tie a bow on the left side the cardigan. This aspect is a stylistic feature that I like and one which suits multiple different outfits and styles.

Concerning the tonal relationship to the other pieces, it works well with my reading glasses for the reasons explained below. But it also additionally works very well with the scarf. The scarf is cream and thus has a darker undertone to it which differentiates it from white. This slight undertone is what makes it work well with the more pastel cardigan as the pieces have slight tonal variation which differentiates them from one another.

I also have my glasses in this picture. I want to highlight my glasses because of the tonal diversity that is present in the frames. Choosing glasses can be a stressful and hard experience. This is because the frames you pick are a piece you will have to wear across your everyday life. Thus, they must go well with your clothes, but they also must be stylish and suit your face shape.

These glasses are predominantly a dark purple colour. However, they have a tortoiseshell pattern. But it is quite subdued. But this patterning brings in yellow, orange, brown and black and thus brings significant tonal diversity. This diversity makes these glasses applicable to pretty much every outfit combination I can think up.

So, as I have pointed out so far you can match clothes which have competing tonal undertones, or you can match clothes which have similar tonal undertones. I would like to continue by looking further at another few pieces which have similar tones.

In the picture below you can see a straw hat. This is one of my most worn and loved pieces of clothing and in summer I pretty much wear it everywhere, daily. Hats are a summer staple for me as I burn very easily and thus, I take significant steps to reduce sun exposure.

This hat has, what I would term, caramel undertones. The hat at the surface level is brown or straw coloured and I agree with this. Probably more towards the straw end for the lighter component and brown for the darker component. Yet both I would argue have a similar undertone which conjoins them – a caramel tone. The lighter colour, for example, is not a straight straw colour. It is a caramel straw colour. Same with the darker brown shade.

These undertones are prevalent in many of the clothes I wear as I wear a lot of browns and very little black. This is seen in the orange jacket which is also present in this photo. The jacket has a brown undertone and has golden-toned buttons reiterating that colours present in the jacket. This thus makes these two pieces ideal to pair together.

Thus, I hope his post has provided a brief introduction to the fact that the coloured clothes you are wearing have various tones to them. This is how outfits as the ones discussed last week can work successfully. You either pair the complete matching tonal colours together so there is no divergence whatsoever. Or you mix and match colours as will be discussed in further weeks that are complementary either because of their position in the colour wheel or because of their tonal undertones.

Also, in retrospect, I am rereading this post and I have realised this post might make people feel like wearing colours is hard or unachievable and I want people to know that is not the objective. I very much might be over-complicating something which at the heart of it is trial and error and making sure you are happy and comfortable in what you are wearing. My objective is simply to try and provide some guidelines for you to do so.