Picking a tie can be difficult – they come in so many different colors, not to say different shades within the same color. Even between two ties of the exact same color, the texture of each fabric may come into play in figuring out which tie looks best with the rest of one’s ensemble.
It’s all about contrast
The traditional ideology picking color tones/shades is that the suit is darker than the tie, which is in turn darker than the shirt. This rule works, but really shouldn’t be taken that seriously. While “suit darker than shirt” is a tried-and-true rule, the interplay between other garments is more flexible, and can best be summarized as “contrast or exact match.”
This statement might sound a bit confusing at first – if two things either match or contrast, then… what are they? In essence, you should avoid wearing colors that are similar but not the same – for example, a white shirt with a pale-yellow tie or a navy suit with a dark-but-not-yet-navy blue tie. Why is this a problem? Think back to the last time you had to insert figures into PowerPoint. You were using a white template and your figure looked like it had a white background too, but once you overlaid them, you found that the two “whites” were different. Now there was an awkward, faint border around your figure – not contrasting enough to look intentional and just enough to be annoying.
Get the image now? Try to avoid that in what your wear.
Fill in the colors!
It’s hard to come up with a definitive rule of what colors work well together and what don’t. Other than the rules that black should mix with neither navy nor brown, most colors will work with each other. (Even navy/brown and black can be worn together tastefully.) You can use color wheel to find the best tie colors to contrast or harmonize with a given jacket or shirt, but let’s be honest – it will take forever.
If you’re lazy, you can wear colors that are known to work: blue and gray, blue and red or orange, purple or pink with navy or black, blue or purple and yellow, brown and tan, etc. An easy way to figure out what “works” is to see what combinations exist in nature – colors found in scenery, on plants, in insects or animals. I admit it might sound weird at first, but just think about it – when was the last time you described nature as “awkward?”
A “more advanced” technique is to have one garment match the secondary color in another garment. What does that mean? If you’re wearing a suit with blue stripes, a tie with the same color as the stripe seems to be a logical next step. The color of your hair or your eyes is another place of “inspiration. For instance, former Vice President Biden was frequently praised by stylists for wearing blue ties that matched the color of his eyes.
Want to stop thinking about it?
Prefer the Mark Zuckerberg/Steve Jobs aesthetic of wearing essentially the same thing every day? There’s a way to do that with suits too. Solid navy and solid burgundy ties work with pretty much every suit and every shirt, and with that, you now have more time to worry about everything else going on in your life.