My main dark neutrals are ink, navy, and denim blue. Because I do wear a lot of denim, I can pretty much use ink and navy interchangeably. In other words, I rarely try to "match" my navies/ inks. I am usually wearing my ink jacket with denim. Or my navy blouse with denim. Or my dark navy tube skirt with a patterned top and an ink sweater -- where the top breaks up the expanse of darks. Or my navy track pants with some other colour of top.
I also wear black with ink and with some navies -- quite happily. FWIW, I do mix optic white with winter white and cream quite happily as well, but I find patterns make it possible -- where all pieces are solids, it becomes more difficult.
Black is still in my wardrobe. But I treat it like one of my "colours" vs. one of my neutrals. In other words, I do not rule it out. I just aim for more navy or ink in my key pieces. And I tend to use black for accents more than for core pieces -- where that is possible.
Brighter navies I treat as a colour. In other words, blue is both one of my key neutrals and one of my key wardrobe colours -- depending on the tone and shade. In summer, I wear cobalt and royal blue (which I don't wear in winter -- too strong for me). In spring, I wear soft powder blue (which I rarely wear any other time of year). In winter, more dark navy and ink. And so on.
A lighter, bright navy is probably one of the most flattering colours I can wear in any season. So when I find a classic for me item in that shade, I snap it up. I also love ink if it shows some skin, as in Angie's dress.
