Fashion 101: How To Combine Colors: Complementary Colors and the Two-Thirds Rule

Posted on | February 2, 2009 | 49 Comments

Course Description:

It’s easy to fall into a rut and wear the same color combinations over and over again. A. and E. have put all of their art-historical training towards creating a useful color wheel of clothing, designed to inspire new color combinations in yours — and our — wardrobes. This is the first of several modules addressing different color combinations and providing examples from our own daily wear. Follow us as we navigate the color wheel and put color theory into practice.

The Color Wheel:

Color Wheel of Clothes, originally uploaded by academichic.

According to Wikipedia, a color wheel is:

an organization of color hues around a circle, showing relationships between colors

In this model, red, yellow, and blue are primary colors; orange, green, and violet are secondary colors; and red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, and red-violet are intermediate colors. Color combinations can be built by using the color wheel to build particular color relationships or color schemes.

Module 1: Complementary Colors and the Two-Thirds Rule

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