Most men stick the safe road in choosing their shirts and ties – solid shirt and coordinating striped tie. Trying anything beyond that is well, beyond them. I rarely see men even attempt anything like this or they simply buy exactly what is featured on the display. Kudos to those guys who knew to just copy the dummy, but good news: now you can figure this out yourself from now on.
Colours
Learn to coordinate colours first before moving on to more challenging pairings. In this case, choose a shirt first with at least two colours in it. The dominate colour of the shirt should be the accent colour of the tie. The dominate colour of the tie should be the accent colour of the shirt. For example, you might have a brown shirt with a subtle pink stripe so try to find a pink tie with brown accents.
Checks & Stripes
This is a great hint guys for looking like you know what you are doing. Coordinating checks and stripes is remarkably easy – with only one rule: smaller on the shirt, larger on the tie. Combine this with your new found ability to pull the colours together and you’ve got a hit. A white shirt with blue/grey checked pattern looks great against a larger similar pattern. It is okay to introduce another colour in your tie here without looking too off balanced. In almost all cases, you can safely mix stripes and checks together provided you stick the colour rules.
Patterns
Mixing patterns together can be somewhat tricky. On the one hand there are some decent rules to observe but, on the other hand, it is also a bit of trial and error. Like checks and stripes, keeping the larger patterns on the tie and away from the shirt is a safe rule and I would suggest that if the patterns are too close to one another in size, it will look awkward.
But rules are meant to be broken and there is one slight exception. Patterns of the same size can look okay if they are different shapes. For example, a gingham shirt with a polka dot tie can look really sharp. Although, your look will be a little safer if you limit the number of colours to two.
Texture
Treat texture like a subtle pattern, as opposed to a solid coloured shirt. So follow the rules for patterns. Generally, the pattern will become much stronger if you try to ignore it and pair it with an inappropriate shirt. Actually, textured shirts can be an easy way to start learning to coordinate your shirts and ties, because a solid coloured, textured shirt will be more forgiving.
