Harmonizing colors and patterns in Classic TIMELESS Menswear

Brian McGuire

1d • OOTD 👔

Watch 76 years old✅

Shoes 43 years old✅

Tie 35 years old✅

Suit 30 years old✅

Shirt 10 years old✅

Any one who has taken the time to read any of my posts has heard me blather on about Classic TIMELESS menswear and how it is timeless because this style endures and thus provides some great value because one can wear it for many years on many occasions. Today I thought I might blather on about the use of adding interest to the basic grey timeless suit with the use of harmonizing colors and patterns. Firstly colors. While I am not a color wheel guy- I do use the “color wheel” of nature. The greatest artist of all time provides some pretty compelling combinations: a backdrop of Blue sky filled with clouds, and in the foreground grey barked trees with deep green leaves = grey suit, with blue and white shirt, with teal green tie. While some store clerks might recommend trying to match a color of thread or even the grey suit with some matching color in a tie to “blend” it together- Harold used to teach us to “harmonize color” the same way that harmonizing with a melody adds depth to a piece of music. This quote of his was drilled into us. Another thing Harold explained was that our inventory was what he called narrow and deep (fewer colors but a bigger variety of suitings and sport coats in each of those fewer number of colors.) This forced us to add accesory colors together more creatively. Most department stores and many wearhouse stores are wide and deep (with many colors and patterns of suits and sport coats) naturally with this huge inventory to unload on customers, the task is to pick some thread or base color and blend the tie and shirt together. I find this much less creative. In the old days I could delineate guys who shopped at one of our quality competitors versus a department store based upon their accessories.

Secondly patterns. Again to add interest to the basic grey suit pattern, harmonizing patterns can add interest as well. Antonio has some brilliant videos about how to match the size and directions of patterns together. A beginner on upping their wardrobe should probably stick with Antonio’s great solid module or “capsule” plan at first. Mixing patterns can take several years for a guy to do on his own without help from a professional clothier. What is sad is when guys get stuck and still think that patterns can’t be mixed. I assure you they can. Today’s OOTD began with my windowpane shirt. I knew a grey suit would be a no brainer and even though the suit has a ghosted lighter grey window pane I knew it’s larger style, thinner line, and pale color wouldn’t conflict with the shirt pattern. Then as I mentioned earlier knowing that grey with green and blue were great combos-I went looking for a suitable green tie (my ties are arranged by color). The woven silk tie I chose had a larger ameba pattern so I knew it couldn’t conflict with the windowpane shirt. The tie “reads” green but is actually a black background with small teal houndstooth repeating pattern. How a pattern (and color) “reads” is important when harmonizing. At 5 feet away the tie appears (reads) as a solid green. At about 2 feet the pattern becomes visible. Working at mastering this concept of how colors and patterns read adds depth to a very basic suit.

For me this process takes about1-3 minutes- a whole lot less time than the blather above. Hope it wasn’t too boring if you got this far. Have a great day gentlemen.

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