What color can I wear with bright red?
Many. Many. Many.
Is the answer this the question many of my clients ask.
To lots of people, red sounds like a very difficult color to wear. Today, I’ll make it easy for you 🙂
First, I tried to find street style outfits for you as usual but hey, pinterest and google shall update their search engines because I always get the same outfits results no matter what I type.
On pinterest for instance, they show pictures that have been posted years ago. Not that I mind. If they look nice you know. But if I saw them hundreds times before… Bo-ring.
Dear Pinterest, would you be kind enough to add a button that would help me sort by “last added”? Otherwise, me and plenty other will visit you less and less. You can contact me and hire me as your consultant if you wish (I know you have a bit of money to spend).
Oh, I tried instagram with hashtags (and lookbooknu and chictopia) but the results never fail to disappoint. So many people. So few classy people.
Instead, I thought I will try a new catwalk oriented search engine called Tagwalk.
Aaaaaand… I LOVE IT!
It can still improve. It doesn’t know a lot of colors and I cannot search for “red sandals” for instance. The search results would give me outfits that indeed contain some red and sandals but not necessarily red sandals. Dear Tagwalk genius creator, if you hear me. Also: keep featuring as much young designers as possible. Not only the big usual luxury brands.
Nevertherless, that is a very very good tool. And it is only the beginning, I am sure it’ll get better and better.
I enjoyed browsing all the red in last FW collection to give your ideas on what colors to pair with it.
Unlike my usual posts, this one does not feature a lot of wearable outfits. Which is not a problem: all you have to do is apply the color mix to your own wardrobe and style. Plus we’ll enjoy looking at some really creative looks ^^
Oh, and red suits EVERYONE.
I. With any neutral color
Red goes with black, grey, white and beige
As every single color it matches every neutral color.
Black and red is a classic. If your clothes do not look cheap there is no reason it’ll look bad.
Andrew GN FW 16
Erika Cavalli FW 16
Acne SS 16
II. With flowery neighbor colors
Like purple, lilac and every shade of pink.
Think of yourself like the red rose in a flower bouquet.
Alexis Mabille FW 16
Miu Miu FW 16
Darker shades of purple would also be nice
III. With warm neighbor colors
Think of a fancy chocolate or caramel wrapping.
Orange, caramel, gold and brown colors nicely complement bright red.
Philip Lim FW 16
Akris FW 16
Céline SS 16
Sonia Rykiel SS 16
Be careful with yellow. With bright red, it may make you look like an harlequin.
I recommend you to add a third color in the mix (not primary green). Or just do put way less yellow than red. Or opposite.
Stella Mc Carney SS 16
IV. With blue <3
I bet you have seen some flags with this classic mix. Don’t they look good? Then you will too.
Baby blue and red together are very popular right now but every shade of blue would work.
Erika Cavalli FW 16
Agnes B SS 16
Olympia Le Tan SS 16
V. With green: its complementary color
Be careful. Make sure you do no look like a christmas tree!
Or like a lost in time scottish lord.
The easiest way to avoid this is not to pick forest green shade.
Kakhi and olive shades are great choices
Olympia le Tan SS 16
Paul and Joe SS 16
V. Monochrome
If you dare dear.
Nina Ricci FW 16
VI. Red clothes I like
And you? With which colors do you wear bright red?
Cover collage: Stella Jean FW 16, Agnès B SS 16, Olympia le Tan SS 16
Thanks for this! Love your articles. Have you written before about how to wear over the knee boots and look chic and classy? It’s winter here in Australia (although not anything like Paris winter 🙂 and I would like to wear over the knee boots, as I am tall and lean and love the look when it’s done right but I find all too often I see it looking tacky. Any help with be appreciated
Ahah, it is it my to do list ^^
Red is the warmest color. Red is the coolest color. Red is the greatest color. I love red. My new favorite item of red is my red leather Longchamp Le Pliage Cuir bag. I’m so in love with the hue. It’s one of those great true reds kind of a blue red and not orangey. Oh. She is a beauty!
In addition, my French better half has gotten me into the habit of red nails. That same beautiful true red. My red nails have become my trademark and I won’t do any other color. Believe it or not, I receive a lot of compliments on the red nails against my pasty pale skin!
I also love red because it goes well with my dark hair.
But, I pair my reds in a more traditional way, with black. Or Navy. Or plaid. Or gray–I LOVE the gray/red combo. And when I find clothes in that perfect red, I never let that clothing go.
My aunt, Daniele, gave me an Andre Courreges ensemble. She wore it twice and couldn’t wear it anymore so she gave it to me. I will never, ever let it go because she passed away in October and Paris just won’t be the same………..
Sometimes clothes can be very much linked to memories… Red and grey is also one of my favs
What a wonderful post! Very good selection of pictures, thank you for all the effort!
Red, especially the darker, winey hues, is my favourite colour. I even feel more comfortable in head-to-toe red, than when wearing only one item in white (white often makes me feel very “loud” and therefore a bit uncomfortable). Sounds strange, doesn’t it?
Here’s especially one picture that cought my eye: the Miu Miu FW 16-picture with the boxy red velvet jacket and long pastel lilac skirt. This is an excellent example of un-matching and colour clashing! I have to admit it is very graphic, as deep red and soft lilac indeed are very far away from each other – still I can’t not love red and violet together. It is a daring one, for sure.
With red and green, I’d suggest NOT pairing hues of the same intensity, to avoid the christmas connotation. Here I’d go with one bright, one muted (greyish or whiteish) colour, to have the matching-unmatching effect. Still a daring combination here too, I think.
In an “over-40” style blog called Fake Fabulous (it was a post about shoes), I read the tip to treat red like a basic colour/like a neutral. This is a very interesting approach, which works quite well, I think! Red is one of the colours I feel goes with everything stylishly. As often, the dose (of overall colour) makes the poison!
This MiuMiu look is also a big crush for me 🙂
I agree with the Pinterest idea of being able to sort by last added! I get frustrated trying to find inspiration outfits (I live in Alaska so I live an outdoorsy lifestyle but I still love fashion – you can imagine that gets difficult to balance ha!) and seeing the same old pins every time.
Merci de partager tes trouvailles Aloïs, Tagwalk a l’air génial!
J’adore toujours tes posts sur les couleurs: une mine d’idées…
Ma robe rouge toute simple – droite, décoletté en V – va retrouver une nouvelle jeunesse cet été avec de nouvelles associations de couleur. Merci