Style Tips: Pairing Complementary Colors To Enhance Your Outfit

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If you take the time to choose some great wardrobe pieces from each color palette and stick them together, the results can be surprising.

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Complementary Colors: How to Pair Them In Your Day-to-Day Fashion

Remember back in middle school art class when you learned about complementary colors? They’re opposite each other on the color wheel—red and green, orange and blue, and purple and yellow.

At first glance, these colors do not appear to go together at ALL. But if you take some great pieces from each color palette and stick them together, the results can be surprising. Take orange and blue, for example. Since the advent of denim, blue has almost become a neutral, and I bet you wouldn’t bat an eye at anyone wearing an orange shirt with jeans. Yet the thought of wearing blue heels with an orange sundress is intimidating to some. But is it really that different? Either way, you have a pop from the bright color—orange—and a visually interesting pair of colors.

Model: Starr B. - Photo by Aristotle Olay for FASHIFY.COM

The other pairs of complementary colors also have one popping color and one more subdued color, since they put together a warm and a cool. Yellow, in particular, is a fantastic way to add a point of visual interest to your outfits, especially in a handbag. A fantastic yellow bag with a purple peacoat or purple dress will draw a lot of second glances—in a good way—and you can do the same with the reverse of a rich, royal purple bag and a yellow skirt or shoes. If you don’t go for bright, try a goldenrod hue or a purple so dark that it’s nearly neutral.

Fashion Tearsheet from FASHIFY Magazine. Photo by Aristotle Olay for FASHIFY.COM

Red and green might be the two trickiest complementaries to pair because of the dreaded Christmas tree look. No one wants to look like a walking holiday, but it is possible to put these two shades together without looking like an ugly sweater party. The key is to pick shades that are a bit off—camo green with maroon, for example, or, if you’re really adventurous, neon green with a bright berry red. It’s also important to remember that these touches should be subtle.

Designs by Viviana G, on Runway at Miami International Fashion Week 2010 - Photo by Aristotle Olay for FASHIFY.COM

Rather than coordinating your whole outfit with alternating reds and greens, sling a bright-red bag over your shoulder and wear an emerald scarf or a dark-green pencil skirt with it.
Color-coding your closet already? I know I am!

This post was contributed by Brenda Hineman, who writes about Halloween costumes over at StarCostumes.

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