What color tie with a Dark Plum Suit?

October 4, 2009 12:40 PM

My brown suit looks more like a dark plum color; need suggestions for shirt & tie colors...

I bought the suit several years ago for $75 on Overstock.com, put it in a closet, and forgot about it until recently. The labels and tags say it's brown, but it looks like a dark plum color. I didn't realize that until after having it altered & dry cleaned, and saw it in sunlight this afternoon. It's still a nice suit, and I do like the color, but when I took it outside & tried to match a tie to it, I came up empty.

SOOO, I'm looking for tie suggestions (colors, patterns). A white shirt can always be worn with any color suit, but I'm open to shirt-color suggestions, too.

The suit looks like this one (mine is also a CK, but I don't think this is the exact same one).

Thanks!
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posted by NYScott to clothing, beauty, & fashion (10 answers total)

I think light blue would work great with a "plummy" color. Maybe even two shades of blue, with a slightly darker one on the tie?
posted by drjimmy11 at 12:42 PM on October 4, 2009

I think this partly depends on YOUR coloration. Hair/skin tones please?
posted by hermitosis at 1:08 PM on October 4, 2009

Light blue sounds good - maybe a white shirt with a brown/blue diagonal-striped tie...

My coloration: dark brown hair, hazel eyes, average-complexion Caucasian (neither pale nor dark).
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posted by NYScott at 2:37 PM on October 4, 2009

HERE'S a better example of what the color looks like. Notice it's listed as a brown suit, but if you look at the larger images, it looks dark plum/purple (to me, anyway), especially THIS image.
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posted by NYScott at 2:45 PM on October 4, 2009

Be careful of the brown in the brown/blue tie you're looking at -- a similar but slightly not-matching brown would be bad -- a very different brown would be fine.
posted by brainmouse at 3:26 PM on October 4, 2009

Gold.
posted by rhizome at 4:40 PM on October 4, 2009

I don't know how you feel about pink, but brown and pink go very well together. The pix you post all look more brown than plum to me. You could also go light blue. I'd stay away from gold or yellow. White will match, but it's boring.
posted by calgirl13 at 8:28 PM on October 4, 2009

On calgirl13's response, a lot of men are colorblind in a minor way. I have a blue/grey issue, myself. Only certain shades. Be certain to get another, (female), opinion on what color you suit is.
posted by geekyguy at 9:21 PM on October 4, 2009

Orange can be spectacular with brown (I often wear an orange tie with my brown suit), with a blue shirt.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:33 AM on October 5, 2009

Great ideas - thanks!

The pictures I linked to DO look more brown than anything, but that was the closest I could find to a plum-brown-ish color. As far as I know, it could be the exact same suit, but in real life, it looks somewhat purplish.

I did get a second opinion, from a female, and she had the same reaction that I had: "It's brown. No, wait, it's kind of.. purplish... Plum? Is that eggplant?" And then, after five minutes of squinting, moving it from direct sunlight to shade, and back & forth, she came to the same conclusion: "I don't know what that color is."

I agree with the problems of matching brown w. brown. I was looking at a tie that had 3 different shades of brown, in stripes of different widths, along with blue stripes. I'm thinking of abandoning the idea of any brown in the tie, though.

Both pink and orange (shirts) sound intriguing, but they also sound challenging, and I'm running out of time. If I didn't have to match a tie, too, that would be easy, but I really need to wear a tie (it's a wedding - my sister's).

I'm leaning toward a light blue ("ice" blue) shirt, with a white shirt as the fallback plan.
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posted by NYScott at 11:16 AM on October 5, 2009