Color me colorful when it comes to clothing–and many other things in my life. I mean who wishes for a dull life.
That’s what the world’s menswear designers are saying these days. Sure you’ll still wear a lot of basic black but you can always spruce it up with one, two or several colors any time.
And if you’re British designer Paul Smith you’ll want to abandon as much black as possible, retiring all that clothing to the very back of your closet. “Certainly, if you look at most front rows of most fashion shows, everybody is dressed in black. The bulk of clothes sold in the world are probably black. I presume that it’s because black with black with black just works,” he explains. (Even I’ve been known to do the black-on-black ensemble more than a few times.)
Comparing himself to other designers, Smith, the master of color in the most unique method of employing his palette from accessories to dress suits, observes, “I can’t think of anybody else who uses color: Martin Margela, mostly black; Helmut Lang, mostly black; Jil Sander, black. Prada uses nice pattern.” Smith’s concept about color in menswear is a demonstration of a man’s character. “You’re quite artistic, so you wear a little colorful tie. Or, I’m quite quirky and I wear a colorful pair of socks. It’s about using color as punctuation marks, not about wearing an entire lilac suit,” he says.
His own passion for color in fashion Smith attributes to his youthful days during the 1960s hippie scene in San Francisco. He recalls, “Men were wearing clothes in a dandy, more feminine way. Floral shirts were very normal.”
Nick Sullivan, fashion director at Esquire magazine, remarks of Paul Smith’s mastery of color, originality and wittiness, “He has a way of making men feel a little bit dandified without feeling foolish.” Smith’s genius lies in his handling of menswear’s “classic with a twist” with his combining of his own personal art sensibility and his sense of practicality, too.
This season Paul Smith embraced the color scheme, inspired by queer artist David Hockney (have you ever seen his homage to his boyfriend of the time in the film, “A Bigger Splash”?), who has had his own sense of style for decades.
“The fact that he’s put a tie with a rugby shirt, and it was just so wrong, he just looked so right,” marvels Smith.
With daring and wit, Smith’s color scheme now includes raspberry and red light weight sweaters, Kelly-green polo shirts and “Sunny Delight” orange and “Pepto” pink deck shoes. So, guys, even a little color can definitely go a long way in making a subtle but contemporary stylish statement but always with the “you wear the clothes; the clothes don’t wear you” attitude. This summer break out of your drab clothing approach to dressing. Remember that even a basic gray pin-striped suit can be punched up with a shocking pink necktie, from solids to patterns (my favorite is paisley), that will get you some attention but still retain an appropriate business look. For summer leisure wear, you can easily make a colorful splash with full chroma shorts, by everyone from Nautica and Ralph Lauren to Daniel Cremieux and Tommy Hilfiger in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and pink, with khakis, long and short pants or your favorite jeans.
Happy Summer Colorful Dressing!