Understanding the Color Wheel

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This post was based of the article The Color Wheel and Men's Fashion from the website RealMenRealStyle. If you want more detailed information you can visit their page. This post will be a simple way to understand better how to match color in your daily wear.

Let me remind you that there's nothing wrong with a man wearing colors! Don't stick with just basic black, white and gray (neutral colors). Be daring and start wearing colors progressively, if you don't feel comfortable wearing a bright red shirt, go for a shade of red (maybe burgundy) and once you're ready for the more daring colors, try them and see if reactions.

I have to say that people will notice you more for wearing different colors and they actually like it, especially women (if you know how to color coordinate, of course) and in this post I'll try to help you get the attention you deserve when matching colors.

First let's take a look at the color wheel.

It's important to understand the colors. RED, BLUE AND YELLOW are primary colors and are the most vivid, bright of them all. Secondary colors (Green, Orange and Violet) are made by mixing the 3 primary colors and opposite to primary colors (for example YELLOW-VIOLET). Tertiary colors are NOT shades of the primary or secondary colors, they are completely different hues. Don't ever say violet is the same color as is a blue-violet, it can matter A LOT when choosing a shirt to mix with a tie or pocket square.

A more detailed, complex color wheel is below.

Now that you have an idea of what are primary, secondary and tertiary colors are let's get to matching them up! There are 3 different kinds of matching: COMPLEMENTARY, TRIAD and ANALOGOUS colors. Let's start with complementary.

Complementary: Super simple, these colors are the ones that are directly opposite in the wheel (RED-GREEN, YELLOW-VIOLET, BLUE-ORANGE). This combination of colors will create the brightest outfit. Use it if you dare! You will see this kind of matching on people that need to stand out. You can try this by contrasting and complementing a tie with a pocket square of complementary colors with a dark suit. It's a great way to stand out and still not be too much out there.

ORANGE-BLUE

Triad: in this scheme the colors are equidistant (in the shape of a triangle). That means they are always three schemes to one side. For example: VIOLET-ORANGE-GREEN

A great example of this is Burger King's logo which is RED-YELLOW-BLUE.

Or this man

This is a good way to mix a lot of colors in an outfit and still be subtle. It is super balanced and anyone can pull off. When you see the color wheel just think of a triangle and match the colors that are indicated. If I have a RedOrange shirt that I would like wear, think of a triangle and then you get a  REDORANGE-YELLOWGREEN-BLUEVIOLET combination. Simple and easy.

Analogous: this is the most subtle of all of them. In this scheme the colors are adjacent to each other. Choose a color and jump only one color to any side and pick the next one. For example: RED-YELLOW, or BLUEGREEN-BLUEVIOLET.

Well, that's it. See if you can match colors better now and let me know in the comments. Don't forget to follow me on instagram @abrazilianabroad ! That's it! I hope you enjoyed today's post, I sure did! 

All pictures found on Pinterest and on the RealMenRealStyle article.