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Colours that don't go with metallics -- what are they?

Michelle

(website)

Veteran

First of all, let me apologize in advance. This post is the first in what will no doubt become a lengthy series of colour questions. While I have reasonable confidence in my visualizations for many shades, there are other hews I just can't seem to picture properly. I'm always a bit insecure about heading out with an inappropriate colour combo, so I know I'll be hitting you ladies up for all your savvy advice. Thank you so much in advance, for myself and the people who don't have to look at scary colour faux-pas!

I work the overnight shift in a newsroom, so I can get away with a more lax wardrobe, but I prefer to dress to ordinary daytime standards in case big bosses have to come in and help with breaking news stories or if I get held up for the same reason. Today I kept it simple: cuffed chocolate brown pants, fitted white shirt, pearls,, silver teardrop earrings. I figured I could get away with wearing my favourite bronze Me Too ballet flats with this ensemble. The trouble came when I tried to decide on a coat and other accessories. I wore pearls because I felt they'd be safe and not clash with anything, but was sorely tempted to wear a colourful necklace with lots of turquoises, blues, pinks etc to liven up the outfit. If I'd opted for that necklace, would the bronze flats have added a discordant note?
Then there's the coat. The weather called for my long red trench. Would that have clashed with bronze? I really struggle to understand exactly what colour bronze most closely resembles and consequently what it goes with. I sort of picture it as a shiny brown shade, but it's not as clear cut to me as silver or gold (shiny grey and shiny pale yellow, yes)? Are metallics generally neutral? If I hadn't opted for bronze with the brown pants, would black have been my safest bet (I don't own brown flats)?

Thanks, ladies... hope my questions aren't too convoluted.

Dressing

17 replies

Latest reply was from merry77

Anonymous

To me metallics like bronze and pewter are pretty much neutral and I wear them with everything. Shiny gold and silver seem a bit more limiting, not because of color but for the glitz they give, which may not blend with the feel of some outfits.
I see no problem with bronze with red or the colorful necklace. A purist might not wear bronze with silver jewelry. Clashing may have more to do with the simplicity or ornateness of the shoe than the color.

Ele

(website)

Michelle, I think your question might be the beginning of a fascinating conversation! I'm really interested to see how others perceive metallics in terms of colour and fitting into their outfits.

First of all, you have bronze spot on. I'd describe it as a shiny brown, just as you did. Picturing the outfit you describe, I can't imagine that your red coat would have clashed with your shoes. The right red looks great with brown, so it would stand to reason that it would work with bronze (a shiny version of brown), too.

It's worth remembering that any colour can be made "metallic". Hot pink, lime, purple, you name it. I think what most people think of when they hear the term metallics (at least in regards to fashion), however, is metal colours. So silver, gold, bronze, pewter, and probably a couple of others that are escaping my mind right now. These colours are all, in my opinion, fairly neutral and don't really "clash" with much.

Because of this, I think that the colourful necklace you described would have worked with your outfit, too. Because the bronze shoes aren't really a pop of colour on their own, acting as more of difference in texture to your brown pants, adding another, brighter colour in the form of a necklace or accessory would still work. I bet your pearls looked great, though- they work with everything!

merry77

Ele gave a great explanation. To further describe bronze, it is a shiny brown, often with gold tones, but sometimes almost rosy. Even though it may have gold or rosy, I think it looks good with silver or gold. Bronze and pewter (shiny gray) are both very versatile.

I think the red coat or the torquoise necklace are good options with the bronze shoes. As Ele said, the bronze shoes with brown pants are more like adding a texture than adding another color.

shiny

Veteran

Very interesting thread!!

I also have the bronze Me-too's and when I first got them, was stumped about what to wear them with. Since they are so comfy, I ended up wearing them with everything, treating them like a neutral. But come to think of it, I don't think I ever wore silver jewelry with them. In the summer, I tend to wear more gold, bronze, wood, and earthy type jewelry any way. And I found I would reach for pearls for outfits that normally went with silver jewelry.

Since I do wear silver far more often than gold, I was happy this year to find silver Me-Too's, which I've been wearing a lot. I also have a pair of pinkish-gold metallics. Just as Ele explains, they are pink but with a metallic sheen. They tend to blend in with my skin color and seem to disappear, elongating my legs. So I treat them as if they were a nude. I have a set of pearls that match the color exactly, so that is what I normally pair with those shoes when I want to wear them.

Oh, and I have the dark grey metallic booties too, for colder weather. I mostly wear pearls or silver jewelry with them.

chewyspaghetti

Veteran

Everyone has had great input on this topic.
I do think of metallics as neutral. If you think about metal jewelery or hardware, there isn't anything that it would really "clash" with. Bronze is one of my new favorite shades. I think of it as gold mixed with brown. Generally, I think that warm colors go better with warm metallics (ie gold, bronze, brass), and cooler colors go better with cool metallics (pewter, silver). I think that's my feeling in general with colors anyway, though- cools with cools, and warms with warms. Sometimes a mix works, though.
I don't see anything in the pairings mentioned that would be a bad mix. Your descriptions of gold and silver are just the way that I think of them

Chris

I think the basic metallics (bronze, pewter, silver, gold) can be neutrals. I would only hesitate on mixing if the shoe/accessory was a very "shiny" metal tone like a bright gold or bright silver.

From the sound of it, your outfit would have been great and had a lot of pizazz with the metallic shoe and multi tone necklace. A red topper may be okay but depends on tones. We can't typically have coats to match all of our outfits - I tend to keep mine neutral (a black trench, a shorter khaki day coat, a brown wool) but if we aren't wearing the coat all day then just for weather's sake you must be practical.

Maybe you can re-mix the outfit later this week with a different top and take a pic?

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

Nice thread Michelle, and such great feedback from the lasses.

When it comes to metals I’m a purist and do not mix warm and cool. I stick to one and that's it. But a metal on its own is a neutral and can be worn with virtually anything. I like light silver for warm days and dark pewters for colder days. I guess I like to differentiate metals with the seasons.

greenglove

(website)

Veteran

I am also a purist when it comes to mixing metals, I actually have a silver wedding ring that I change if I wear silver jewelry. Bronze is a warm metallic. I thing a tomato or rusty red works beautifully with bronze, not sure about a cooler, clearer red. I would have to see the necklace to make a decision about that. I tend to be more minimal with color and believe that often less is more. That is a personal preference that others may not share. It seems that you have a really good instinct about color. Turquoise and bronze is a beautiful combination! By the way , I saw your pictures and you are quite beautiful and stylish!!

Oneirix

(website)

I think that metallics in the traditional sense are considered neutral, but personally I feel the undertones should match, as Angie and chewyspaghetti mentioned. I'm not sure how bronze flats and silver jewelry would look, but it sounds a little off to me. I don't think they clash with any colors though! And bronze with pearl or turquoise both sound beautiful.

Kari

Veteran

What an enlightening discussion! Michelle, I'm glad you started this thread because I honestly haven't thought about this, and it was a challenge to examine how I actually use metallics when I'm combining colors in an outfit.

For the most part, I think I treat metallics like a neutral that will give me a little extra "kick" or "pop". For clothing (shoes, mainly) I use bronze where I would have used a matte brown, and I substitute pewter in place of gray. For jewelry, I wear silver and bronze-ish metallics, but only rarely wear gold. I don't think I've tried to mix "warm and cool" metallics, although I don't shy away from silver jewelry when I'm wearing my bronze glasses frames since they have a few silver rhinestones at the temples that (I think) picks up the silver in the jewelry. I figure that pearls operate as an all-out neutral that won't clash with other metallic colors.

Michelle

(website)

Veteran

This is most informative, thank you all so much. Figures, though, that it's led to more questions on my part. I've always struggled with the concept of warm and cool colours. I believe red is warm and something like blue is cool, for instance, but am not sure about other colours, or even nuances within shades. Needless to say I'm totally at sea when it comes to knowing which metallics are warm vs. cool. I imagine silver to be cool and bronze, copper and gold to be warm, but would welcome some clarification there. As for pewter, I don't even know what that looks like. I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to mixing and matching colours that I don't understand as clearly, so I may lean towards the purist approach. One outfit I've periodically worn, though, consisted of a blue dress with bronze sandals and a copper statement necklace. Was this a case of pairing warm metals or just a massive misstep? If I should abandon that combo, what colours (metallic or otherwise) would work with the copper necklace? I love it and don't want to abandon it.

I really find your different takes on this subject fascinating. I've always justified my own blind-guy-adapted approach to colour by saying they're more subjective than objective. How many times have we witnessed two different people haggle over the precise name of a certain shade? I also have a theory that colour-sense is taught and acquired to a certain degree, not just inherently understood. E.G. if Elle and Angie were to look at a red dress, they could both agree it was red, but what Angie sees as red Elle may perceive to be pink. Elle may simply be applying the red label to the colour she has learned should bare that name, however it may appear to her eyes. I could be totally off-base, of course, seeing as I only had vision for a few months of my life. Time to stop rambling about it.

merry77

Silver and pewter are cool. Bronze, gold, and copper are warm. Pewter is often a shiny charcoal gray.

The blue dress with bronze and copper is not a massive misstep

This would be a definite area of confusion. If you read the threads on color here in the forums you'll find that even people who see the colors have difficulty distinguishing warm and cool. It gets even more confusing when you discuss muted or dusky colors (like in Tarzy's thread on dusky colors).

What determines cool versus warm is the base color or undertones. Cool has blue, warm has yellow. But blue can look great on people who look best in warm colors depending on the exact shade or hue and depending on what it's paired with. And yellow can look great on people who look best in cool colors depending on the exact shade or hue and what it's paired with. Red can either be cool or warm.

I'm not trying to confuse you further, I promise! But color is very complex, and that's why you'll find different terms used for the same thing and different opinions also. And it is confusing for lots of people, so don't feel like you're alone in this. Some people who have studied color a lot, like Greenglove (Jean) and Imogen, have a much better grasp on these things then most of us.

Perhaps if you posted photos or links to shopping sites of items you have or are thinking about people could answer more specifically.

shiny

Veteran

Michelle, I agree with you - and I am one of the people notoriously bad at naming colors. In fact, I just now realized my metallic booties are pewter. I have been calling them "Dark Silver" for lack of a better word. LOL. (Except that I seem to recall the online description of these shoes called them dark silver... hmmm).

Ele

(website)

Michelle, I think the concept of warm and cool is something that most people struggle with, even those who can see perfectly! It sounds to me as though you have a better grasp on it than a lot of people.

As others have said, colours are super complex and very personal. Some shades may lean only very slightly toward warm or cool, and it's always open to interpretation. I've studied colour theory (although not as intensely as Jean/Greenglove, for instance), and I still have a hard time figuring out certain shades.

A note about pewter, since you said you didn't know how to think of it- basically, it's a darker version of silver. If silver is a shiny light grey, pewter is a shiny dark grey. Most people think of gold and bronze as warm and silver and pewter as cool, like Merry said. I'm going to confuse you a bit further here and say that I actually find pewter quite variable. It can be much more neutral than silver, and I have seen items that seem to be almost a "warm pewter".

Also, I totally know what you mean about how people perceive things differently- questions like that used to drive me crazy as a kid! I'd spend hours thinking things like "I know that grass is green, and that other things that look like grass are green, too. But what if my green is my Mum's pink? What if everyone else sees thing differently to me? How do we know?" LOL, I must have been a really weird kid!

chewyspaghetti

Veteran

This thread is fascinating. I want to add one thing- EVERYONE sees color a little differently- think my eye doctor told me that there were studies that proved it. So when one person says 'That dress looks x to me", and another says "It looks more y to me" that is really how each one sees it, and so there are truly no hard and fast color rules, because each set of eyeballs is going to interpret it their own way. (Which I think is kind of what you were getting at, Michelle)

yublocka

(website)

Veteran

Colours are very subjective! Both my brothers and several of my male cousins (its X-linked) are blue-green colour-blind. We have had MANY arguments about calling things purple vs blue etc especially when we were younger. Funnily enough both my brothers did visual arts at uni and one is now a graphic designer. Go figure!

merry77

Tam - There is a local artist who does murals, commissioned paintings, etc., and he is colorblind. I certainly do not understand it, but it is obviously possible because his artwork is amazing.

The way the human eyes and brain work is incredible. And as this whole discussion is revealing, perception of color is just as important, if not more important, as actually seeing color.