There are some colours and colour combinations that we wear at a certain time of year, for a sports event, or on a specific public holiday. For example, wearing red and green, or even red on its own, is thought of as Christmassy by many of my clients. Bling and shine is festive for the New Year. Orange and black is great for Halloween. Emerald green is right for St. Patrick’s Day. Red, white and blue is fun for July 4 in the United States. Dutch Orange is good on “King’s Day” in the Netherlands. Navy and lime are dead right when the Seattle Seahawks (our local American football team) plays a game.

Each of these colour combinations is associated with a context. Take them out of the context, and you might feel they are odd or inappropriate.

Personally, I’ll happily wear colour combinations out of context. I wear red year round, and with green. I wear daytime sparkle whenever it tickles my fancy. Orange and black look just fine at any time of year because I didn’t grow up with Halloween. It’s always a good time to wear orange when you’re Dutch, and red, white and blue is a classic nautical combination. 

Here I am wearing red and a little green on Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. How do you feel about out of context colour combinations?