What makes something look good?
We’re all captivated by music, landscapes, architecture, and visual arts that suit our taste. For these to be likeable, they must have harmony.
Think of your features – skin, eyes, hair, body type – as items you permanently wear. Thus, “how good you look in this outfit” means how harmoniously your features and outfit align.
Let’s examine your features. Let’s diagnose your ‘fashion fingerprint’. It has three parts [1]:
- Contrast
- Undertone
- Body Type
What is Contrast?
Contrast is the difference in colors, lightness, or darkness, and how much they stand out against each other.
Facial contrast is the difference in depth of color among your hair, beard (if any), skin, eyes, and mouth. Match the contrast level of your outfit with the contrast level of your face.
It’s best explained through examples.
Examples of Matching Contrast
Neil Patrick Harris
Neil is low contrast; there’s little difference in depth and intensity of color between his features.
Though there is some contrast between his shirt and suit/vest in each outfit, they’re all within range of his contrast. They don’t overpower him, and so they look great.
John Travolta, Grease
- John is very high contrast; jet black hair (that shines), dark eyes, and fair skin.
- Black and white is the highest possible contrast that exists.
Love Is Blind Participant, Clay
- Clay is high contrast: Though brown skin contrasts less with black hair, it contrasts highly with the white of the eyes and white teeth.
- Skin shininess affects facial contrast. Clay’s skin is dark and reflects light, increasing his contrast.
Improvements:
- Silver earrings is not wrong here, but diamond one’s would complement the contrast even more.
- It’s all the bulk of the cake and missing any fun. A touch of colour would’ve been the cherry on top; best done via pocket square or via socks where the pants have no ‘break’, i.e. they’re about the longest they can be without touching the shoes when standing.
Jesse Eisenberg
- Jesse is medium contrast. Dark brown hair, fair skin.
- He’s clean shaven; a beard would increase his contrast.
- He pulls off these medium contrasting colour combinations perfectly.
- These shirt colours really bring out his eyes.
- Though the red top is a single colour, the textured pattern along with the white threading and buttons add a touch of contrast, enough to match Jesse’s.
Ben Hardy
Ben Hardy is low contrast, but has some vibrancy to his look.
I love this second example because it shows that just because you’re low contrast, it doesn’t mean you can’t wear different colours. When colours are muted or tinted, their contrast is reduced. So Ben pulls of ‘brown’ (tan) with ‘blue’ (baby blue) quite well.
Ryan Gosling
When Ryan has less contrast, he’s pulling off a less contrasting outfit; tan and white.
When Ryan has more contrast with darker hair, less of a tan than before, and reflective studio lighting. Thus he can pull of a more contrasting outfit.
Examples of *NOT* Matching Contrast
John Travolta
Not bad, but no comparison to the exact same outfit when the red shirt is swapped for white. The latter is the icon that springs to mind whenever we hear “Travolta from Grease”.
Also not bad, but single colours don’t enhance his high contrast face, though the blue brings out his eyes.
John Travolta would not have been a star with fits like this!
Love Is Blind Participant, Clay
- Clay is high contrast, and though he’s wearing bold colours, the outfit is still low contrast. It clashes with his contrast levels by drawing excessive attention to his brighter parts (teeth) as opposed to a balanced glance at his face.
- Note: he’s also wearing very warm colours, yet also a silver watch and earrings, which clash. More on that in the next article on ‘temperature’.
Kurt Cobain
- Kurt’s features are pale, and he’s low contrast. Light hair, eyes, and face.
- The shirt is much too vibrant for his softer face, which doesn’t have the vibrancy to match such an intense colour. The shirt outshines him and makes him look sickly (in addition to the heroin withdrawal).
Chris Hemsworth
Contrast matching matters more the closer it is to your face, but it still matters top vs bottom.
Beyonce
- Here, Beyonce is low contrast. There’s little colour difference between her hair, lips, eyes and her skin.
- The stripes make this deep navy and white outfit extremely high contrast, even more than a solid black jacket and white tee. The outfit pops too hard and drowns out her low-med contrast face.
Love Is Blind Participant, Jeramey
- Jeramey has pale features and low contrast.
- The pale suit overworks our eyes, and fades his face even more.
- The extremely vibrant, high contrast shirt harshly demands attention, drawing it away from his face, and making him look even less vibrant. Magenta and lime – that’s nearly Christmas!
Other style mistakes:
- Sleeves past the wrist bone – too long
- Since he’s going for a casual look, he should have no break on the pants and wear loafers with no-show socks instead
- Shirt collar is too buried
Improvements:
- A dark grey suit with navy blue shirt would make his face pleasantly pop. Alternatively, tan suit with brown loafers
- Some subtle silver accessories such as necklace, wrist watch, or bracelet.
Love Is Blind Participant, Matt
- Matt is pale and low contrast
- Again, we have a near black and white combo – the highest contrast possible. It does not match his face and makes him look sickly.
Solid White vs Black
- Paler skin looks better in black. The eye is overworked in paleness if it’s pale on pale
- Darker skin looks better in white.
- Note: Dark top on dark skin can still looks good, but the dark visual changes the vibe to dark as well. Conversely white top on light skin has cliched connotations of purity.
Looking Better in Black
Lucky Blue Smith.
All his features (except eyebrows) are pale —> better in black.
Jesse Eisenberg
Ditto with Lucky Blue.
Looking Better in White
2Pac
50 Cent
Can Pull Off Either
Jason Momoa
The Dark on Dark Look
It’s been used in movies cohesive with the character’s darkness:
It has the same effect of choosing two darks layered, instead of balancing with black and white:
With a penseal!
I’m sure he’s nice guy, but black on black layering along with his darker features gives a less amiable vibe. Swapping for a white tee shirt would be more balanced and soften the hardness. Conversely, the light on light look is used for stereotypically ‘angelic’ aura.
Things Can Change
Jake Gyllenhaal.
When paler, he couldn’t pull off white:
But white improved when his beard added darkness:
GQ knew what they were doing when they darkened his features (make up, tan, shadows, photoshop – whatever), bringing balance:
That should cover it. In the next article, we’ll talk about ‘undertone’, or ‘temperature’ – get it right and it will grant you a lively aura.
Signing off,
Sav Dean
Read Men’s Fashion Part 3: Undertone
Elaborations & Sources:
- Women’s fashion adds intensity of colour, “chroma”, as a fourth part. Unlike women, men rarely have a chroma more striking than their temperature or contrast. This is due to genetics, hormones, and make up. Make up is one reason why women can pull off much more vibrant clothing than men – it creates a higher (often supernormal) vibrancy in their eyes, lips, and cheeks. Thus, I’ve excluded it for simplicity. If you think you’re an exception, try this: http://colormepretty.co/categories-2/12-season-color-analysis/
