Welcome back to the Gentleman's Gazette!
In today's video, we'll discuss how you can pair brown and blue elements of your wardrobe
so you look different yet always well-dressed.
In my opinion, one of the most underrated combinations in menswear is brown and blue.
Just think about it for a second, there's a lot of blue suits and navy suits out there,
lots of brown shoes and different elements but often, people don't wear them together.
So today, I talk about why it's a good idea to pair brown with blue, I discuss certain
basic accessories that you should have in your wardrobe, and also I provide a little
bit of inspiration about how you can combine them without limiting yourself.
First of all, why should you pair blue with brown?
Couldn't you just wear a navy suit or a charcoal suit or a black suit?
Well, you could but ultimately, it would be just nothing more than a business uniform
and adding brown with blue makes everything a little more casual and relaxed and more
suited to this day and age.
So why do brown and blue look so great together?
Basically, blue and orange are in the opposite side of the color wheel meaning they're a
complementary contrast color, because of that, they naturally work well together and are
pleasing to the eye.
Now if you look at a brown suit just, as the ones I'm wearing here, you can see there are
lots of tones of orange and because of that, brown and blue go so well together.
Also, brown is such a great color because it is a neutral shade and depending on if
you get a dark chocolate brown and medium brown or a light brown or maybe a pastel brown,
it really works for 99% of men out there.
The same is true for blue, if you look at the shade of navy, medium blue, royal blue,
or light blue, there's one shade of blue that works for any kind of man out there.
On the other hand, if you have dark skin, going with high contrast items such as maybe
a navy suit with a white shirt and tan brown shoes goes really well together.
If you have a medium skin tone, you can avoid the high contrast of black and white as well
as the extreme pales of maybe light blue with light gray.
Otherwise, you can have a dark blue suit with a light blue shirt and a brown grenadine tie.
Another great aspect of brown is that it brings down the formality of blue and makes it more
casual.
In this day and age, where even classic outfits are getting increasingly more casual, brown
and blue are your best friends.
Brown also increases the versatility of blue so just think about your navy dark business
suit that you can wear with a white shirt and your black Oxfords but you can also just
take the jacket of the suit to pair it with some khakis, some brown suede boots, and a
brown knit tie, and it has a very different feel and it's suited for different occasions.
So that way, with those colors, you get more wear out of your wardrobe and you don't have
to invest as much.
If you think about it, there are lots of shades of blue and brown.
Because of that, it's very easy to always create a certain element of contrast that
works well with your skin tone and looks pleasing to the eye.
So as long as you avoid the extremes such as a navy suit with a really dark chocolate
brown color, you're good and you'll always find the appropriate contrast.
For the same reason, no matter if you have a light, medium, or dark skin tone, you can
find a combination of brown and blue that works for you.
That being said, what are a few brown and blue classic wardrobe staples that you should
have in your wardrobe that can be worn in many different ways but they all work together
if you combine brown and blue?
First, start with the blue ones.
Of course, one I have mentioned a few times, the navy suit.
Whether it's single-breasted or double-breasted, it is a great companion and should always
be in every man's wardrobe.
Next up is a navy blazer and to learn more about it please check out this video here.
Another blue wardrobe staple is the navy grenadine tie.
It's not made out of a hundred percent silk but it has a really pleasing texture that's
a little more matte and interesting than most shiny blue ties you can buy in the market
today.
It can be worn formally with navy suit or with tweed jackets and you can find a selection
of navy and blue grenadine ties in three different sizes in our shop here.
Personally I'm also a big fan of blue knit ties.
They have even more texture than grenadine ties and you can have them in lighter blues,
you can have them in two-tone blues or dark blues.
Another wardrobe staple is the light blue dress shirt either with button cuffs or with
French cuffs.
That being said, light blue comes probably comes in 150 different shades for shirts and
so you can find exactly the right one for your needs.
Personally, I'm also a big fan of navy chinos.
and every man should have a blue pocket square because it complements well with a navy suit
but you can also have other blue elements and for a full range of pocket squares with
blue tones as well as brown tones please check out our shop here.
Another good blue item to have in your wardrobe is a pair of shadow striped navy and dark
blue socks.
Why?
Because you can really pair them with any kind of blue or navy pants, they will always
look professional, will always look good, at the same time, it's not your typical run-of-the-mill
solid navy socks.
To learn more about how to combine pants with socks and shoes, please check out this video
here.
In terms of the color brown, probably the most underrated item in a man's wardrobe is
a brown suit.
Most men don't think they have to invest in a brown suit, personally, I think every gentleman's
wardrobe should contain a brown suit because it can be dressed down or up.
For example, if you go with a charcoal Brown suit, it's business appropriate yet it's not
as formal as maybe a dark gray suit when you go somewhere after work.
If you get a lighter brown suit such as the one I'm wearing here right now, it's the perfect
weekend suit or casual suit when you want to look dapper yet be distinctly different
from your business wardrobe.
Best of all, you can wear the slacks as well as the jacket individually with different
combinations so you really get a lot of wear out of this brown suit.
The second wardrobe staple that most men have is a brown tweed jacket.
Obviously, there are so many shades of brown but having at least one tweed jacket is perfect
because it's a wonderful fall-winter garment, it's a classic staple, and to learn more about
tweed, please head over here now.
One of my favorites is this solid brown grenadine tie.
It's really easy to combine, you can wear it with
tweed or with a business suit or with a business casual outfit and it will always look timeless,
appropriate, and never out of place.
The fifth item you want to invest in are brown dress shoes and brown dress boots.
Honestly, there are so many shades of brown and you can have dark Browns, reddish Browns,
medium Browns, or light pale Browns, and if you want to see all the brown shoes that I
have in my collection, check out this video here.
Other than tha,t I'm a really a big fan of medium brown and lighter brown ties such as
a tobacco Brown knit tie or maybe a medium brown striped tie because again, they're easy
to combine with casual outfits and it's just an underrated tie color because most people
go with blue, maybe yellow, and definitely with red.
Last but not the least, I think a brown pocket square can really help to tone down an otherwise
formal business suit but it also works with summery linen jackets as well as tweed jackets.
If you want to get the biggest bang for your buck make sure you have different textures
for example, on the one hand, you could get a silk pocket square with blue Paisleys just
like the one I'm wearing here right now, and then you could combine it with a more casual
pocket square in linen that is very pale Brown with a light blue X stitch.
Now once you have these basic wardrobe staples, what are a few inspirations or ideas that
you can use to combine these two colors that will always look amazing?
The first option is to wear a blue suit with a brown tie and a pocket square that picks
up the tones of blue and brown.
Of course you can also wear brown shoes with it but the rest of it can really vary.
You can add maybe a boutonniere in light blue or not at all.
Maybe you could add a third color into the outfit, it all depends on your heart's content
but this combination will always work.
Of course, instead of a suit you can wear a pair of white winter flannels, maybe a pair
of khakis, but stay away from navy chinos because they may be too close in color, there's
not enough contrast and would just look weird.
That being said, you could also wear gray flannels or medium gray sharkskin pants, whatever
works.
Having that blue element in there allows you to do a lot of things.
50 years ago some people will be nervous to wear a navy business suit with brown shoes.
In this day and age, there's nothing normal than that and if you go to Italy, you
probably see very few well-dressed men wearing black shoes with a navy suit.
They'll probably always choose one shade of brown, could be lighter, it can be darker,
but it's just their favorite color.
Another great combination is to have a darker brown or a medium brown suit with a light
blue shirt.
It can be a solid or it can have a subtle pattern and then add either a blue tie or
a brown tie.
It's very calming and interestingly, you can put together entire outfits that consist of
nothing but brown and blue yet they won't scream "look at me I just combined two colors"
as if you would combine maybe red and blue or white and blue.
A much more casual combination is to have blue denim with brown shoes.
I think you should never wear denim with black shoes because it's simply too hard of a contrast
between the formal black color and the traditional denim work wear and those are really just
very basic tips but you can go a lot further beyond that.
Personally I think brown and blue go together so well that I designed a bunch of products
with exactly those color combinations. for example look at our wallets or our gloves
our tie like the knit I'm wearing here right consists of dark brown and blue but we also
have things like our business card holder or our manicure kit that are just in those
colors and to learn more about those please head over to our shop and if you enjoyed this
video please subscribe to the channel so stuff like this comes right to your inbox and we
also have a guide on how to combine gray and blue that I'm sure you would like
of course in this video my outfit consists of just two colors you guessed it brown and
blue first I have a medium brown suit it's a herringbone suit it's kind of a 1940s silhouette
maybe 1930s it's a vintage suit that I've found in London England I really like it because
it has that orange undertone and it's lighter and paler in color than most brown suits that
you would see otherwise usually this kind of a fabric would only be made into a jacket
or slacks not a suit I'm pairing it with a striped shirt it's a wonderfully soft twill
in light blue and dark blue the tie I am wearing is from Fort Belvedere it's a knit tie a cri
de la soie knit tie which has a nice structure and nice scrunch to it.
it is mottled with yarns in dark brown and light blue so from afar it looks like a solid
color when you come up close you can see they're different it's all tied together by my dark
brown light brown and an electric blue pocket square as well as my light pale blue boutonniere
on my feet I'm wearing a pair of dark hand polished reddish-brown whole cut Oxfords that
I tie together with shadow stripe socks in blue and brown from Fort Belvedere wearing
a dark brown belt with a silver buckle and because of that I go with a silver ring with
a lapis lazuli blue stone