The Art of Coordination. Lesson 1: how to mix two similar patterns

I didn’t make a slip, I really meant “Art” of coordination. From my own experience I know, that it is not always easy to combine the color of the shirt and of the pants, stripes and checks, and in general, can they be mixed??? This question we are going to discuss right now. And the first our topic will be combining two similar patterns.

The most important here is to create a complete and perfect ensemble, to preserve one style and do not look ridiculous. We want to have a natural and smooth transition between the two similar patterns. The art of doing so is to have different scales for the two same design patterns. Let us begin by looking at mixing stripe patterns first.

If we deal with stripes, we should take into account two things: the space between the stripes and the size of the stripes. It is desirable, that these two parameters should be different, because if two small size stripes are put together, the effect can create quite a bit of tension between them. When having two different stripes yet with similar spacing makes it difficult to put the attention on either stripe.

For example, what can be the combination, if you wear your stripe suit and a stripe dress shirt? One combination involves stripes with very similar spacing for both the suit and dress shirt. The other combination - the suit has a much different scaled stripe spacing compared to the dress shirt. As we can see, there is a higher preference for the combination that has different scaled stripes. It allows a more distinguished transition for the dress shirt from the suit.

You can also mix stripe shirt with a stripe tie, keeping to the same model. It’s better to take a tie with more space between the stripes – your image won’t blend too much.

Speaking about checks, you are sure to follow the same pattern. But checks have more intense pattern compared to stripes, so it can be more difficult in coordinating especially for plaids. Let’s look through possible combinations of dress shirts with a check tie.

Do not wear a check dress shirt with a similar check tie – you will look weird and your whole image will acquire unnecessary tension. But if you match it against a smaller check tie the overall look allows a smoother transition between the two similar patterns even though with more contrast. At the same time, we you wear a small check tie and a tiny check dress shirt, you create a lot of disorientation. This is because of its intense and vibrating effect on the eye that is confusing and blurry to the viewer. So you’d better use contrasting sized checks as well as contrasting sized stripes.

In general, if you are eager to mix two similar patterns, you should take into account the combination of your suit and your shirt, your shirt and your tie or even your suit and your tie.