How to wear more colour in your outfits

We LOVE expressing ourselves with bright colours! (Couldn’t you tell?) But what we don’t love is how tricky it is to get the right combination of colours without looking like you was just involved in a paint factory explosion. It can be a lot of fun styling colours together when you do get it right, so we're here to share our tips and tricks that we've picked up along the way to make your colourful outfit work.

OBEY THE COLOUR WHEEL

If you’re an artist or designer you’ll be familiar with the sacred colour wheel. For everyone else, here's a great example;

There are lots of colour combinations to choose from, but we found that using these two rules when plotting your outfit colours gives you a massive advantage;

1. Colours that are OPPOSITE each other on the colour wheel compliment each other well because they clash against each other to create a bold effect 

2. Colours that are NEXT to each other on the colour wheel compliment each other in a more subtle, harmonious way

Stick to these 2 rules and you can't go wrong.

USE YOUR HAIR

If you're planning a colourful outfit - how about dying your hair to match? Even a few streaks or a wash-out dye will bring everything together. We recommed NYC punks MANIC PANIC because they’re vegan, easy to use and last a long time! We swear by them. If you’re not brave enough to dye your hair, then manic panic sell great strips of clip-in hair too!

Pro tip: mix up your hair dyes to create your own custom colour

ACCESSORISE!

An easy way to add colour to your outfit is with accessories. Choose from necklaces, glasses, wristbands, badges, hair clips or whatever else takes your fancy. You can mix and match them to compliment the colours in your outfit and add extra accents. Plus, studs, diamantes, silver, gold, chrome or holographic materials will work with ANY colour combo; they all reflect and enhance what you’re wearing.

PASTEL COLOURS

You might think pastel colours aren't bright - but when used in the right way they are just as colourful. Unlike bolder colours, pastels can be mixed with a lot more shades (as long as they're all pastel) to create a rainbow effect. How Kawaii!

DONT WEAR TOO MANY COLOURS

Wait, aren't we talking about wearing colour? Yes, but if you’re trying to create a colourful look without looking garish, try not to mix up too many colours. Try and stick to three main colours using the colour wheel, or add neutral shades like black, white and brown to enhance the colours you do have. You can use different shades of the same colour too. Unless of course you like looking garish - in that case - go for it!

DON'T CARE WHAT OTHERS THINK

The most important advice we can give you is to wear what you are comfortable in, and stop caring about what others may think. Sure, they might stare, but as long as you like what you look like - that's all that matters. Besides, they're probably just admiring your excellent sense of aesthetic colour matching. Wave and smile!


Do you like wearing colour? Post a photo of your outfit below!

Gender neutral clothing - is this a step backwards?

I recently saw an article about a well known clothing brand releasing their new line of ‘genderless’ clothing. Whilst my first impressions was that I was pleased the company had chose to support people who didn’t necessarily fit into the default ‘male' or 'female’ categories, I was soon concerned that what they had actually done was the opposite.

As a transgender man, I often found it nerve racking to shop for clothing. Most high street shops didn’t only label their clothing as MALE or FEMALE, but also went as far as to separate them completely – often on different floors of a building! Walking through the men’s section was daunting, but being told I had to take the men’s clothing downstairs to the women’s changing rooms was even worse, and the continuous reply of ‘they’re men’s jeans, you want the women’s section downstairs’ was humiliating and rude.

So why is the genderless clothing a bad thing, you ask? Surely that helps your situation? Well, actually no. The problem is not with the clothing at all. Men’s jeans fit me and many other feminine figures just fine, that was never the problem. In fact, many people who identify as women choose to wear more masculine clothing that is marketed at men – maybe they prefer the colours, the fit, the way they feel (why is clothing aimed at men so much more comfortable?) or maybe just because it just suits them. What the real problem here was; the marketing. The men’s clothing was never really accessible to me, because I didn’t fit their idea of a ‘man’.

The problem selling ‘genderless’ clothing is that clothing is ALREADY genderless. T-shirts don’t have genitals (surprise!) and shoes don’t identify as anything but shoes. The gender is an added tag that the companies use for selling their products to the their idea of the perfect customer. It’s been the norm for so long now that it’s accepted everyday without the staff or the shoppers questioning it. The high street store who released the genderless clothing line didn’t realise that they didn’t have to create a brand new clothing line to label as a third option, they just need to let people buy the clothing that they already have.

“But how will we find the clothing we want without these labels?" Labelling clothing as they actually are, instead of who you think would suit them, is still a good enough label. ‘Women’s High Heels’ are simply high heels marketed towards women. Sorry if this comes as a shock to you - but men can wear high heels too!   

As a clothing designer for Offend My Eyes, I didn’t ever want to label my garments as ‘male’ or ‘female’. Everything we make can be worn by anybody. In fact, it’s the whole ethos of our brand – be yourself, and wear whatever the hell you want. Even when we created more snug, fitted T-shirts that would usually be labelled ‘women’s tees’ we purposely labelled them as ‘fitted unisex.’ Because, after all, if a man wants to wear a fitted top, then it is a man’s top. I still find it bizarre when people like a garment, but won’t wear it because it is labelled as women’s. It’s why we model our clothing on lots of different people – including male, female, trans and gender fluid models who aren’t shy about expressing themselves.

So what would be my ideal situation? Well I think in the UK especially we are becoming more accepting and understanding with regards to gender anyway. While we still have a long way to go, I am noticing more and more people are familiar with terms and what they mean, and this only means that soon businesses will follow to keep up to date with trends and current times. The first step would be for shops to label something to make it easier to find, but do away with the restricting, sexist, outdated (and rather useless) gender labelling on clothing. Clothing shouldn't need to be changed - just our attitude to marketing it.

What do you think? Is gender-neutral clothing a good idea? Let us know in the comments below.