I recently tried on two gillie shoes in similar tonal colors, a tomato/lipstick red and a deep fuchsia pink.

I first held up the shoes with all the tops in my wardrobe looking for color harmony -- neutrals and most brights and pastels worked with both, of the patterned shirts there were more with hints of pink then hints of red, so I was leaning pink.

Then I actually tried on the tops with white jeans and the shoes and suddenly 'matchy' didn't work to my eye with the pink. A top with a little pink in it, pink shoes and neutral pale bottoms took me into Barbie territory -- navy or especially dark burgundy bottoms helped, but the red shoes actually looked 'better' to my eye with the dark pink tops (and red lipstick) because they didn't match exactly but had tonal harmony.

What about you? Do you tend to prefer two color matching elements in an outfit (shoes and bags, shoes and belt, top and shoes, scarf pattern and shoes etc.) to tie together other disparate colors and patterns, or do you prefer to go with tonal, but not close color matches between accessories?