Jessica writes:
Very similar to my own colours, but I have blues instead of pinks. In fact it was reading your blog that gave me “permission” to focus on a personal palette and it has been great! My question is… what colour shoes do you wear with grey? I gave up wearing navy because it is so darn hard to find shoes that go. I have a lot of brown shoes and wear mostly denim, brown, blue and some olive green accessories. I have black and grey for dressier occasions (but would like to wear grey more often) and a few pairs of black shoes. Are there other shoe choices?
Jessica, I’m so glad you feel free to limit your colors. It’s not intended to be a restricting thing, but a liberating one. Now on to your question. Basically, there are three ways I can think of to color coordinate your shoes:
- Wear shoes the color of your hair.
- Match (or blend with) your outfit. Generally, shoes would be the same tone or darker than the hem of your garment.
- Choose a “punctuating” color or neutral and repeat it as a belt. Repeating it again near the face is even better.
Actually, there is one other. Recently, Clinton and Stacy have made wearing a bright shoe with a more subtly colored outfit popular. It looks fine still, but may look dated at some time in the future.
(Incidentally, navy clothes don’t need navy shoes. Try brown or black instead.)
Without knowing the color of your hair, I can’t go too far in recommendation, but here are a couple of thoughts:
- Black shoes with gray are a no-brainer. (see #2 above)
- When wearing brown shoes with gray, be sure to wear something else that’s brown also. (see #3) In the winter, I like to wear a brown top and boots with my charcoal gray pantsuit.
- Since both of my daughters have green eyes with gray rims, I tend to like olive and other greens with gray.
- Lots of other bright colors go well with gray (but then you may be bringing complication on yourself). I have found my coral flats to be very versatile. Perhaps in your color scheme, an intense – maybe royal? – blue would be the bright shoe to have.
Hope that helps. If all else fails, maybe try silver. 😉
I usually end up wearing yellow shoes when I wear a gray top (generally with a dark blue denim skirt). I don’t know why, it just calls to me that way. I think red and purple both look great with gray as well. It’s a combination that’s supposed to be trendy this fall, so I’m curious to see how it plays out.
Thanks for answering my question! I should have said I have brown hair, light skin and bright blue eyes. That’s why I wear a lot of blue, but it is generally light blue or a grayer shade of blue (does that make sense?). I also wear some teal, and aqua. I have the olive green accessories because it seemed to go well with all the brown and blue I am wearing. I will try the brown with gray. Thanks again.
Same here, Jessica, except that my eyes are more green than blue (sometimes they look a bit blueish, though). I looooove wearing teal.