Recently the Kinowear team has become great friends with two style experts from France – Geoffrey Bruyere and Ben Wojtenka. These guys are top class with helping men build a uniquely killer style, and run the best men’s style blog in France (bonnegueule.fr).
Kinowear teamed up with them this year to bring you guys the greatest style guide here.
A Beginner’s Guide to Colors Without Headaches
In today’s society, men have grown more aware of how colors can play a vital role in assembling a killer wardrobe. Men are also aware that this is no simple task and quickly become overwhelmed.
The starting point to mastery is being mindful of your natural features. The next time you choose an outfit, try to keep the main tones you wear similar to the tones in your hair and eyes.
The easiest way to get comfortable doing this is with neutral color tones such as black, white, and gray.
Take a look at Ryan Gosling below as an example. Notice that with his blonde hair and blue eyes, he looks best using soft color tones that match his naturally soft features.
Left: More contrast in the outfit (black) than his naturally blonde hair and blue eyes overpower him.
Right: Matching his soft hair and eye colors with the neutral gray and white makes him look much more attractive.
As you get comfortable matching neutral color tones to your natural features, start introducing non-neutral colors like blue or brown into the mix. These colors are essential to every man’s wardrobe and easily pair with neutral colors such as white, gray, or black – just make sure to match the most prominent tones in your outfit to your natural tones.
Following our previous example above, Ryan Gosling would look way better in a clear navy blue blazer or camel colored suede jacket rather than the black leather one he’s wearing on the left.
- Match the strength of the colors to your natural features (e.g. If you don’t have black hair, avoid wearing too much black).
- Start with neutral colors like black, gray, and white.
- Advance to easy-to-match colors like blue and brown – still matching the tone strength to your natural features
- Introduce more noticeable colors in your wardrobe!
Hope that was helpful!
Check out our style e-book that we wrote in association with Kinowear!
Until then,
Geoffrey Bruyere & Benoit Wojtenka
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Very helpful!
Love it.
Hi,
What if I’m black? I mean, I’m latin, from the caribbean, and is hard for me to follow this advice. Sure it works great on white skin, but my skin, hair and eyes are black, so I’ve been advised to wear pastel colors, instead of dark ones like black, brown and blue navy, which are actually my favorites.
Does this advice still apply to me even though I’m not white (and not exactly black)?
Thank you guys!! Looking forward to read that ebook 😀
This is a great post, fits right in with the rest of the writing here on Kinowear. Looking forward to more posts by them, it’s just too bad bonne gueule isn’t in English.
@Emmanuel
If your hair and eyes are black/dark brown, you can definitely enjoy pastel colors as well as your favorite colors (black, brown and navy), but next time you can try creating outfits with one pastel color (e.g. shirt), and make the main colors in your outfit match the intensity of your natural features (black or navy blazer). This way you have some color to make your outfit stand-out, but also a nice balanced outfit that works together with your natural features – instead of having them go overlooked.
Hope that helps,
Jae
Awesome quality article as always. Can’t wait for the ebook and the following articles.
Thank you so much for the style guides. Really improved my style a lot since the “Science of style” series.
I will continue recommending your site.
Keep up the good work!
And what if I have red hair and very dark eyes? I can’t understand how I can use the infos in this article to match colors to my features!
@ Giuseppe,
If you have red hair (and we’re talking true red), with dark eyes, then you should generally try and match the intensity of your natural features to the intensity of your colors. For example, you’ll look great in a chocolate brown leather jacket, a dark navy blue blazer, or off-white linen jacket for the summer.
@ Jed, I use Google Chrome browser to read http://www.bonnegueule.fr The browser detects French and asks if you want to translate the page to English.
There’s no reason to miss out now. Enjoy 😉
What do you suggest for me to wear with a Green jacket with dark green shoulders? I’m Asian with black hair, brown eyes, and moderately tan skin.