Color Coordination In Menswear: The Unlikely Combo (A/K/A Outside the Box)

I may have mentioned this before but I find the following story humorous and revealing as to the nature of how people think when it comes to putting looks together. A few years back my wife and I went store browsing for my birthday. Not to buy of course, but simply to look at how the "upper end" department stores put it all together.

Our first stop was at the Men's Department of Saks Fifth Avenue, where we chanced upon a mannequin that was totally mismatched. The shirt and tie was right but they didnt belong with the suit. Off to the side there was what I had perceived to be the perfect accessories, a complementary shirt and tie. The store manager was standing there and I asked him why the merchandising department would do something like that when there were so many beautiful ties and shirts that would work so well with the particular suit, to which he responded "What you are suggesting is a "no brainer". Anyone can do stuff like that. Here they were thinking outside the box". My response was that thinking outside the box is nice so long as you are still on the planet. In this case it simply did not work. He took a look at the suit in question and remarked...yes, you are right, what probably happened was that the previous suit worked with that shirt and tie and the merchandiser got lazy and left the shirt and tie on while changing the suit!

My job and goal here is to get you to think a little outside the box and with that lets take a look at tonights pictures. (in which I sneak another escapee in without drawing too much attention. How I missed these ties is beyond me. Oops.)

Silver works naturally with Black and with Navy, so putting a silver tie with a white or blue shirt and a black or blue suit is what Mr. Saks Fifth Ave might call a no brainer. Lets think a little outside the box and try brown. (If you have been reading me for a bit you will know that its not that far outside the box, as Brown and Charcoal work well together. Silver being a different shade of grey should work as well. )

Here you have the Brown suit with a Brown pin stripe Shirt (from the Kids Hickey Freeman Kids Line) paired with a silver satin tone on tone dotted tie and a floral earth tones square.

Now if you look at the square detail which is pretty of its own right you will see that the inspiration for colors can come right off the square. You have Browns, Blacks, Beige's, Green and you guessed it...Silver.