Color blocking outfits are one of the easiest ways to stand out and be fashionable while still being accessible and cheerful. The other great thing about color blocking is that it can be done with fairly basic, comfortable and affordable items. The only question is - how can you find out which color combinations look good together?
Continue reading to learn some basic color theory, which is very important for color blocking, as well as some important color combinations that will always look great. I also give some random color blocking tips and tricks to help you on your way.
Remember, practice makes perfect. The more you play with color and the more adventurous you become, the sooner you can see what looks and does not look good and you will feel more risk-averse. But first:
What exactly is color blocking?
Color blocking is the combination of different solid fields. When it comes to color blocking in fashion, it means that no more wild prints are used for colored objects, or individual elements that are color-forbidden with different colored fields. A dress made of three dyed fabrics would be considered as color blocking, as well as a through-dyed combination of T-shirt, jacket and pants.
Color Wheel
Understanding How to combine colors makes it important to understand how the color wheel works. This circular rainbow is a must for every artist and designer, no matter what industry he works in. The color wheel shows us how all the colors are related to each other.
Other Color Blocking Knowing Terms
• Primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. With these three colors, you can create any other color for the visible spectrum.
• Secondary Colors: These are colors that are created when combining two primary colors. They include orange, green and purple.
• Tertiary colors: These are colors that are formed when more primary colors are contained in a secondary mix. Orange-red or purple-blue are tertiary, for example.
• Warm & amp; cool colors: one half of the color circle is warm and reminiscent of fire, sunshine, beach sand, while the other half is cool and reminds us of ice and winter. The warm colors begin at the tertiary color reddish-purple, moving through red, orange, yellow to reach yellow-green. The cool colors start from green and include teal, blue, indigo and violet.
• Neutral colors: Most colors are not exactly colors because they exist outside the color wheel. Black is the absence of color, white is the absence of hue and is the color of sunlight, gray is a mixture of both.
In real life, these "colors" are rarely truly neutral - gray, for example, can easily switch to blue. Brown is a real color - it is a composite color consisting of the three primary colors and it usually tends towards warm.
• Shadow: When a color is mixed with black, it gets darker, that's a shadow. Navy, for example, is a darker shade of blue.
• Tint: When a color is mixed with white, it makes a hue. Rosa, for example, is a lighter reddish. Saturation: Saturation determines how dense or intense the color is. Highly saturated colors are very strong, while low saturated colors are much more subtle.
Key Color Combinations
To understand how color blocking works in fashion, it's important to always remember what the primary color combinations are. Based on this information, you will always mix and match colors in your outfit!
Monochrome Color Blocking
This is the simplest color blocking technique you can do. Simply combine items that are all the same color. Your shadow and tint could change from object to object, so you could wear dark blue jeans, a sky blue shirt and navy blue shoes.
You can also add black and white to a monochromatic color blocking scheme. Normally, monochromatic schemes work well, though sometimes you risk being washed out or overwhelmed with a single color. For this reason, it is important to vary color tones and shades.
For a monochrome look, it becomes important to understand what kind of effect can have lighter and darker colors. Dark hues absorb light and make things seem smaller, while lighter shades make things look bigger. You can play with different types of illusions to flatter your character in monochromatic color blocking.
Analog Color Blocking
Analog colors are colors that coexist sitting on the color wheel, and to really rock them in a color blocking technique, opt for three colors, two colors and a neutral, or two analog colors, and a shade or shade of one of t tube colors.
Orange-red, orange and yellow make for a wonderfully summery mix, while teal, dark blue and light blue are a little more subdued, but just as beautiful. Note that if you use three colors, you should have a primary color, a secondary color, and a tertiary color.
As you can see, this color blocking technique is almost as simple as using monochromatic colors is a great way to play with colors when playing an outfit.
Complementary Color Blocking
Matching complementary colors can be excellent or catastrophic, depending on how you draw it. Complementary colors are simply two opposite colors on the color wheel. For example, purple and yellow, or green and red.
Opposing colors stand against each other, and both end up brighter. This effect can be conspicuous, but it can also lead to an unfavorable collision.
There are several ways to get complementary colors: the easiest is to dominate one of the colors and add it to the complementary color as an accent - think of a ratio of 5: 3.
The other way of rocking complementary colors is to play with hues and shades and avoid overly saturated colors. For example, a pale pink can work very beautifully with a pastel green for a preppy look, while forest green and dark red can give an autumn feel. However, a full-bodied green-and-red look is hard to keep sticky (or at Christmas).
Split Complementary Color Blocking
This is actually a variant of the complementary color scheme. You choose a color and then, instead of choosing the opposite, you add the two colors analogously to its opposite.
That is, if you choose green, you add the two colors that sit next to you to your outfit red: purple and red-orange. This produces the same contrast you would get by pairing complementary colors, but it's more balanced and understated.
As with most color blocking methods, it is better to avoid symmetry. Select one color as the main color in the appearance and use the other two colors for accents.
Triadic Color Blocking
The Triadic pattern for color blocking consists of three colors that are equidistant from each other on the color wheel. The three primary colors together form a triadic color scheme.
It's a bit like the complementary color scheme, where the effect of the three colors together is very strong, so it's best to avoid wearing all three colors in full strength and darker ones or choose lighter shades, rather than something overly vivacious.
Personally, I prefer triadic color schemes with tertiary colors, such as reddish-purple, greenish-blue, and yellow-orange, because they appear more sophisticated and subdued.
Tetradic Color Blocking
If you draw an imaginary rectangle on the color wheel, you get the four-color four-color color scheme. Color blocking with tetradic colors is a fad at the expert level that can create really interesting but balanced looks.
One way to think about the tetradic scheme is to have two color pairs - one color pair is dominant, and other color pairs act as an accent. For example, if you block yellow, orange, violet, and blue, you can choose warm tones as stars and cool tones as accents. It could be a yellow top, orange bottoms, purple shoes, and blue jewelry.
As always, the more saturated the colors, the higher the chances of colliding, so avoiding symmetry and having a mixture of tints and shades, can guarantee a fashion gain.
More Color Blocking Fashion Tips & amp; Tricks
• Neutrals are your friends! You can always put a neutral in a color-locked appearance, and sometimes it can add a whole level of sophistication. Whether you're wearing a bare pump, a white jacket, or some black jewelry, it's hard to be wrong with a neutral.
• When blocking the color, remember that your outfit does not exist on its own. Once you put it on, you also add your natural coloring to your look. A very yellow skin tone may look sickly next to some shades of purple, while greens may unfavorably produce a rosy undertone.
Her hair color also has undertones that work well or can collide. In good lighting, try your color-blocked outfit to see if it works with your natural color.
• Be careful with pairings that should fit together sensibly: black and navy blue and white and cream. Both color combinations should work because they are so similar, but in the end, they look like you were hoping to combine two of the same colors.
• Take a color wheel with you when you go shopping to immediately see what kind of color combinations you can make with every new item you buy.
• Practice, practice, practice! An eye for color is not something that comes immediately, but you can certainly develop it.
• Be inspired everywhere! Everything from an outfit you've seen on the catwalk, your favorite painting, to a particularly unique website graphic design can inspire your next color-blocked outfit.
What's your favorite color? Which are your favorite colors? Share your opinion!
Photos via @aylin_koenig, @bartabacmode, @chiaraferragni
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