Sunday, September 28, 2008

Weekly Feature #3

DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU.

C is for...COLOR.

What a tricky subject this is! In the broadest strokes possible, you can paint most men with two palettes: timorous and trendoid. The timorous sticks safely with the blandest shades of gray, blue and khaki; while the trendoid adorns himself with all colors of the rainbow (gay pride and otherwise). Somewhere in the middle, the truly confident, well-dressed gentleman employs savvy color-sense with a healthy dose of common sense.

Consideration should be paid to skin tone, eye color and hair color when choosing how to drape oneself in sartorial splendor. Play up your best features. If you are very tan, bright colors that would overpower your paler brethren will look marvelous on you. If you have high contrast features (pale skin, dark hair), you will look exceedingly sharp in stark black and white, or navy and white, combinations. If you hair and skin don't vary much in color, using similar colors in your clothing will be highly complimentary to your complexion. And if I had as resplendent a mane of silver or salt and pepper hair as, say, Anderson Cooper or our own Dray of
Vintage a' Go-Go, you can bet that I would be swathing myself in all manner of grays: dove gray, gunmetal gray, heather gray.

Color wheels and complexion charts aside, the only foolproof way to decide which colors look best on you is to try them on. For instance, I never would have guessed that green would be my color, but now I adore it: rich forest greens, emerald greens, kelly greens. And it happened quite by accident; I purchased a shantung silk sport coat which, under the lights of the boutique, seemed to be black verging on steel gray. Wearing it for the first time in daylight, however, I realized that it was a deep billiard green. In this case, it turned out to be a very happy accident indeed -- it had already been altered, so I couldn't have returned it if I wanted to. But it taught me to think outside of the box a bit, and to try colors which I may have shied away from in the past.

Having said that, one shouldn't buy various colors in shirts, sport coats, trousers, etc., just because one or the other looks well on you, otherwise you'll wind up with a vast wardrobe consisting of separate pieces which don't work together. Have a plan. When choosing any item, big or small, mentally relate it back to what's already in your wardrobe. What will you wear that sweater with? Which shirt and jacket will that new tie compliment the best? I've found that the colors which I gravitate towards, and which suit me the best, naturally fall into place with each other.

For fall, I adore greens, purples and oranges -- which sounds like an awful mish-mosh, but they all work beautifully in combination with each other, and with the basic backgrounds of navy, brown, camel and gray which make up the large part of my collection of fall trousers, suits and sport coats. And, for the most part, these are the colors that I plan around when making my fall purchases. I should also hasten to add that I use color mainly as an accent; I don't find it particularly stylish nor the least bit elegant to look as if your ensemble had been created by Crayola. My personal belief is that it takes much more imagination and wit to spruce up a well-tailored gray suit with a pumpkin-colored tie; a complimentary pocket square in, say, pumpkin and navy; and shoes which have just a hint of burnt orange to pull everything together, than it does to wear electric blue and fluorescent yellow in an attempt to be hip.

On the first truly brisk day of this season, my very casual outfit consisted of: navy trousers (with the slightest cast of purple in the navy); a pale violet Oxford shirt; a deep plum merino wool V-neck sweater; cordovan patent loafers; and topped with a 3/4 length coat in deep, deep espresso brown, lined in sheared fur. Those colors may make the timorous dresser described in the first paragraph blanch with fear, but everything combined very discreetly and very conservatively -- but with that extra "something" to lift it beyond the ordinary. That's what I mean by combining color-sense with common sense. Remember: the proper application of color should result in a harmonious whole, rather than one or two jarring, out-of-place notes. Or, worse yet, a suite played entirely off-key.

Finally, two tips: first, the easiest way to
start a wardrobe, color-wise, is around a pair of gray trousers. If the shirt, jacket, sweater, et al., won't look correct with a pair of gray flannels, skip it, unless you can afford to build several complete outfits from scratch. Second, a word about black. It has its place, and for formal wear, nothing can top it (although, a midnight blue tux is a mouthwatering proposition). Use it wisely, however; downtown hipsters notwithstanding, it can be awfully boring when used too often, or without white added to the mix. But whenever you choose black, particularly for suits or overcoats, it must be of the best quality you can possibly afford, otherwise it looks cheap. Better to opt for gray or navy, if you are on a very tight budget.

AN ELEGANT EXAMPLE OF HOW TO ADD A SUBTLE, TASTEFUL "POP" OF COLOR TO AN OTHERWISE CONSERVATIVE ENSEMBLE.

THE "POWER OF COLOR" NEED NOT BE ABOUT BOLD SHADES: HERE, GRAY IS USED TO COMPLIMENT AND ACCENTUATE THIS HANDSOME GENT'S BEST FEATURE.

ANDRE 3000 DEMONSTRATES HOW AUDACIOUS CHOICES MADE WITH GOOD COLOR-SENSE AND GOOD TASTE NEED NOT LOOK OUTRAGEOUS.

5 comments:

  1. Love your style sense...still say you should be a men's fashion editor.

    And thanks for the shout-out. Shades of grey esp. mixed with blue is my favorite.

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  2. Do you own a suit or sportcoat in the palest shade of dove gray -- almost the color of those bleached stones in Spain? That would look spectacular on you.

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  3. "almost the color of those bleached stones in Spain"

    Now there's a phrase I'd like to be able to work into daily conversation.

    non sequitur-ily:
    Thank you for reminding me of the fabulous Norma Jean (Wright) solo work! Love her.

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  4. You know I tend to avoid light colors in jackets (feel slimmer in dark colors) but if you think so, I will be on the look-out for that shade.

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