Colors are the most important thing in men’s and women’s fashion. Not only should the clothes colors harmonize with one another, but what is even more important is that the colors you wear compliment your color profile. The proper attire should draw attention to the wearer’s focal point: The Face.

When trying to find your best colors two things must be considered. First, the color contrast on your clothes should mimic the contrast found on your face (hair and skin tone). Second, the colors you wear should highlight your face by repeating one or more of your natural pigments. Below are some tips that will make it easy to find your perfect colors. In addition, you will find advice on how to pair these colors to draw more attention to your face.

Your Best Colors

While this might seem complicated at first, finding your perfect colors is actually quite easy. Have a look at the pigments found on your face. The best clues come from your eyes, your hair color, and your basic skin tone. Men with blue eyes for instance will do well with a matching blue dress shirts or blue tie. The color on the shirt or tie will compliment your eyes and will instantly draw attention away from your clothes towards your face. The same is true for men with green and hazel eyes.

Next, have a look at your hair color. If you have dark hair then you will do well with darker clothes. A man with black hair for instance would do very well with a suit in black or charcoal. Finally, pay attention to your skin. Is it pale, dark, olive, or reddish? Again, compliment these pigments with the clothes colors you choose.

Most men have a few colors that will look great on them. When combining an outfit all you need is one of those colors to. A man with reddish hair for instance would do well wearing a maroon tie or burgundy colored pocket square. All other clothes colors can be picked more freely and should balance around the tie.

Combining Your Colors into One Outfit

Once you understand what colors look good on you we can go into how to combine your outfit. To do this you need to understand your personal color contrast. Experts group men into three groups: High contrast, medium contrast, and Low contrast profile.

The high contrast man has a strong contrast between light and dark of hair and skin. This contrast is commonly found on men from the Far East that have dark black hair and relatively fair skin. If you fall into the high-contrast category then you want to show some contrast in your clothing. A dark suit and alight dress shirt is a perfect example. Do not however shy away from colors. Excellent to add colors are the small accessories such as mens ties and pocket squares.

One the other spectrum are men with a light color contrast – typically for northern European men. A man with light hair and fair skin is a perfect example. Men with a low contrast profile should stay away from a strong white shirt black suit combination – unless required by an invitation calling for black tie dress code. The black suit is almost always too overpowering and instead a charcoal gray suit paired with a light blue dress shirt is much more complementing.

Finally there is the medium contrast profile. This profile is most commonly found in Southern Europeans, African Americans, Hispanics, and men from South East Asia. Men that fall into this category will do exceptionally well when wearing clothes with a strong contrast. Again, the black suit, white shirt, skinny black tie, and elegant white pocket square is a perfect example. Men with a medium color profile also do well with strong colors. Wearing a bold red tie with white shirt and black suit would not work for the nigh contrast profile male, but for the medium contrast it will do wonders in illuminating the face.