Avoid Ugly Dress Patterns and Tacky Colors

There are two primary considerations in coming up with your dress ensemble - color and pattern. Whatever happens, don't lose your mind on these two.

You can make color work for you by using a simple web color schemes generator. From this one, you can pick a starting color, let's say the main color in a tie or shirt, and then work on from complementary or contrasting colors from there. For me, I would advise that your suit be a business-like navy or charcoal grey for these kinds of colors will do everything for any hue or any occasion for that matter.

Just keep in mind also that you keep the interest on your ensemble focused. A man in a suit should have no more than seven items of interest on his person, like suit pattern/color, tie pattern/color, shirt pattern/color, shoes, belt, watch, and cufflinks. Therefore, anything else distracting from these seven is a no-no, like a handkerchief in the suit breast pocket. For the women, too much hair accessories, make-up, jewelries in the ears, neck, wrist, ankle and loud dress patterns will make you look too much like a clown.

Patterns to Match

In this line of thinking, patterns in dresses are also dangerous if done wrong. However, if you pull them off right, you can really stand out.

The usual approach to patterns is to limit it to one pattern if possible, two at most. The secret of patterns is all about balance, that is, no very dominant patterns or colors should prevail. Pin or chalk stripes can match with other pin or chalk stripes as long as you vary slightly the weight and spacing of the stripes. I'm not so sure though why people are so scared of patterns when you can surely have them successfully mixed.

You should try to stick to one pattern or one solid (i.e. patterned suit, solid shirt, or vice versa) as much as possible. Other subtle patterns can be pulled off but you're safest with solids and pinstripes. Almost any pattern that share the same color palette will match with anything, so long as there are large swaths of uninterrupted color for a more consistent look. These swaths of color can be in the form of solids or embedded in the design of large or spaced-out patterns. With bigger patterns, pick a single color from the pattern and match it to a smaller one that reads as solid, as long as they are all in the same color family.