Accessorizing a Ferguson Weathered

[OC Richard]

I wore brown hose with red garter ties, a light blue shirt, a brown patterned tie, and a bottle green jacket. I tried to walk the middle line between complementary and contrasting colors.

Interesting choices, I'm trying to paint a mental picture of it.

If you would indulge me a moment as I put my artist-colour-theory hat on, those colours IMHO are working at cross-purposes.

Staying within an earth-toned outfit yes for the brown hose and brown tie. The light blue shirt makes an excellent contrast; you'll note how often light blue and brown are used together. They work because they function more or less as complimentary colours (if you think of brown as being a dark dull orange).

What I would change, personally, is the jacket colour. You have a green/green thing going on with the tartan, clashing IMHO not because of hue but because of saturation.

Oftentimes outfits co-ordinate well more because the saturations are consistent than because of the hues involved.

Weathered tartans bring together colours of lower saturation, and if you throw any high-saturation colour with it you have a clash.

Here are examples of low-saturation or "soft" colours;; the hues are all over the place but they co-ordinate due to similar saturation.





Now throw one of these colours in there! It doesn't go! No matter what the hue. Because these are high-saturation colours.

(Mostly, there are a couple softer colours below.)



Bottle Green, at least what I've seen in Scottish jackets and hose, is a dark strong green like the green in "modern" tartans.

IMHO better to go with a non-colour such as black or grey, or an earth tone that co-ordinates with the tartan, or low-saturation blue, which ought to co-ordinate though it contrasts.