A Man’s Guide to Colors

If there’s one thing us men are really bad at it’s cooking and color matching. Unfortunately, that last problem can affect our fashion sense so… guess what? We’re going to deal with it.

Now, I could tell you about all the ways you can figure out which colors work well with others, but I already did that. Instead, I’m going to cover a topic that’s of critical importance.

I want to give you the most common color names.

There’s a cute picture running around the Internet about how men and women see colors:

Funny, isn’t it? Still, if we want to make outfits that stand out ,we should know these colors. Don’t worry – it’s easier than it looks and I’ll be right here to help you fixate these colors better. I’m not just going to give you the names but also some example outfits, to fixate them better in your memory as well as see how they work together.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee and let’s get started… we have a lot of colors ahead of us.

1. Reds

Red is a very powerful color that will easily make you stand out. It’s really easy to go over board with this one:

Fortunately there are plenty of nuances of red that will stand out a little less and make our outfits look more stylish. For instance…

And here’s a darker red which I’m sure you’re familiar with and that you’ll like A LOT:

And here’s a nice plaid burgundy shirt. Hype it if you like it.

Some other colors derived from red are:

Here’s me in a magenta shirt with rolled-up sleeves:

Rose bonbon

Fuchsia

Carmine, a deep red:

Fuchsia and carmine work wonders with black, by the way.

Now there are a lot of other reds, such as cerise or chestnut, but the ones that I showed you will do. Let’s just focus in these two, which you can visualize as in-between red and blue:

You can go ahead and wear more than one shade of red on the same outfit. Just make sure you coordinate this powerful color with the rest of your outfit colors.

2. Browns

You’ll often hear me say that brown is the new black. This is because brown colors are an amazing way to stand out from other men’s outfits, primarily centered around blacks.

Let me show you some common browns that you can incorporate into your outfits right now. This is brown…

A hot color from the browns family is camel.

In the look below you can see a camel blazer paired with an earth yellow pair of pants:

And how about desert sand? You’ll often find this color on desert boots such as these, from Clarks:

And here’s another very popular color. If you’ve ever worn a pair of khakis, you know what I’m talking about:

Here’s how I chose to match khaki (you can do it differently):

Some other browns include…

and

3. Whites

Since we saw what khaki looks like, let’s discuss whites, for a second, shall we? If you ask women, they’ll go on and on about the different nuances of white, such as ivory, beige, pearl, eggshell, mint cream etc. etc. etc.

Let’s see a few of them.

If you don’t look closer, you won’t even see the difference between ivory and white. Yet there is one and most women know about it. It wouldn’t hurt if you did too. 🙂

Cream is actually pretty close to khaki, if you look closely, yet the two should never be mixed up.

And how about this one?

Ever heard of pearl-white? Now you know what it looks like. But wait, how do you match it?

All whites are considered neutral colors. This means they go well with pretty much with anything. Of course, a good color coordination in the rest of your outfit is necessary.

4. Yellows

5. Grays

Pay particular attention to these if you’re looking to get a new suit.

6. Greens

Here’s an outfit with olive chinos for reference:

Olive is a great color for pants. it’s not too balsy, yet it can make a great fashion statement if you know how to match it. Plus, if you’re a military style fan, you’ll be twice as happy wearing a pair of pants such as these.

7. Blues

Azure is my favorite color by the way.

Take a look at this turquoise scarf. It’s a great way to add some color during winter. You’ll need it particularly if you have, say, a navy blue overcoat.

Take a look at this nice baby-blue short sleeved shirt:

8. Oranges

Orange works very well with black, gray, brown and blue so, if you based your wardrobe around these 2 colors, add a touch of orange every now and then to take your outfits to the next level.

Of course, you don’t have to pair orange with just blue or grey, you can play around with shades and nuances as much as you like. Here we see how the color in discussion is paired with taupe and turquoise:

Peach is a nice variation from orange, which you can pair with light blue. As you can see this fellow did an amazing job:

Let’s wrap this up with a small quiz. Just answer the questions in the comment box below.

1. What’s your all-time favorite color?
2. What are some of your favorite color combinations that you use in your outfits on a daily basis?

Stay stylish,

George