What color goes with…? Color combinations for clothes
Every color goes with the neutrals: white, black, gray, beige, navy and denim. Beyond those, the opposite color on the color wheel gives strong contrast, and its neighbors give easy harmony. Brown, for example, contrasts with blue and harmonizes with mustard and terracotta. Pick the color of your piece to see the combinations.
Suggestions follow the traditional color wheel used in fashion guides (red–green, blue–orange, yellow–purple). Placing each fashion color on the wheel is our editorial convention; texture, print and proportion matter as much as hue.
Three ways to combine colors
- Complementary: opposites on the wheel, like red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple. High contrast that draws the eye.
- Analogous: neighbors, like blue and teal. Harmonious and hard to get wrong.
- Triad: three colors evenly spaced around the wheel. The boldest route: let one color lead and use the others in small doses.
The proportion rule
A balanced outfit usually has a main color, a secondary color and an accent, in roughly a 60%, 30% and 10% split. For example: neutral pants and shirt, a layer in the secondary color, and an accessory in the accent.
Why we use the traditional color wheel
There are two color wheels: the pigment wheel, with red, yellow and blue as primaries, used in painting and fashion, and the light wheel used for screens. They give different opposites: on the light wheel, blue’s opposite is yellow; on the pigment wheel, it is orange. Fashion guides follow the pigment wheel, and so does this tool. Where each clothing color sits on the wheel (brown as a dark orange, burgundy as a red-violet) is our editorial convention.