How we match colours and build outfits

30

colours

55

garments

336

garment and colour combinations

435

colour pairs rated

15

pairs set by a named convention

12

colour-analysis types

14

capsule wardrobes

314

pages open to search engines

Of all colour pairs: 68% rated Best, 27% Works, 4% Careful and 0% Avoid.

1. 1

   Named conventions come first

   Pairings repeated across menswear and womenswear guides are treated as fixed: navy with brown, navy with khaki, navy with white, camel with navy, burgundy with grey, white with blue denim. So are the warnings: double denim in one wash, identical khaki top and bottom, pure red with pure green.

2. 2

   Leather has its own rules

   For leather shoes and belts the trouser colour decides: black trousers take black shoes, brown under black is a traditional no, light tan is the worst of them, and brown trousers never take black shoes. These rules don't apply to sneakers.

3. 3

   Neutrals pair with almost anything

   We treat three groups as neutrals:

   • True neutrals: blackwhitecreamlight greygreycharcoal
   • Earth tones: beigekhakicameltanbrowndark brown
   • Neutrals by convention: navydenim blueolive
4. 4

   Contrast in depth

   Two pieces at nearly the same lightness blur together; a visible step between light and dark makes an outfit look deliberate, so it raises the score.

5. 5

   The colour wheel

   Neighbours blend. Opposites work when at least one is muted and clash when both are bright. Two bright colours with no clear relationship compete, so they are rated Careful and the page suggests a neutral between them, a softer nearby shade, and proportions (one colour for most of the outfit, a second for one piece, the third as a small accent).

6. 6

   Formality, season and occasion

   Each garment has a formality range, from gym wear to black tie, and the seasons it can be worn in. Pieces far apart in formality lose points even when the colours work, formal occasions penalise bright colours, and an outfit is only built from pieces that share at least one season.

1. 7

   Outfits

   An outfit is never allowed to contain a pair rated below Works: every pair, not only the pairs with the piece you started from. Among valid outfits we show different kinds (all-neutral, one accent, tonal, layered) rather than four versions of the same idea.

2. 8

   Capsule wardrobes

   A capsule starts from the pieces that pair with the most others, then keeps adding whichever piece creates the most new outfits, within a mix of tops, bottoms, layers and shoes. The outfit count on each capsule is exact: every combination of its pieces that passes the outfit rule above. “Buy next” is ranked the same way, by how many new outfits a piece adds.

3. 9

   Colour analysis

   Three traits place you in one of 12 season types: undertone (warm, cool or neutral), depth (light to deep) and clarity (bright to soft). Your best colours are the ones closest to your type on those three traits, never of the opposite temperature. With the photo option, a vision model reads the traits from your selfie; the photo is not stored, and if no face is clearly visible we say so instead of guessing.

• Fit and proportion: a perfect colour pair still looks wrong if the trousers are too long.
• Fabric and texture beyond the basics: satin and tweed in the same colour are not the same outfit.
• Pattern: stripes, checks and prints are not modelled yet.
• Your colouring, unless you take the colour test, and your own taste.
• Local dress codes and trends: the rules follow long-standing conventions, not this season's runway.

Think a verdict is wrong? Write to privacy@mystyletry.com and we'll look at the rule behind it.