How to Wear Colour

The received wisdom is that a first bag should be black, a second one brown, and colour comes later if at all. We think that is backwards. A well-chosen colour is often easier to wear than a black bag, because it does not have to match anything — it just has to sit well beside it.

Start with a colour that behaves like a neutral

Some colours are quieter than their names suggest. Blush pink sounds like a statement and behaves like a neutral: it goes with grey, camel, white, denim and black, which is not something you can say about most coloured bags. Sage green does the same job in a cooler direction.

Let the bag be the only colour

The simplest way to wear cobalt or ruby is to keep everything else quiet. A proper colour against neutral tailoring reads as deliberate; the same colour against three other colours reads as an accident. This is why cobalt works so well on a commute — it is a proper colour without being loud.

Stop matching your shoes

Matching a bag to shoes is the fastest route to looking dressed by someone else. A ruby bag with black shoes, an ivory bag with tan, sage with navy — a deliberate mismatch reads as considered, where a perfect match reads as a set.

Save one colour for occasions

Not every colour has to be an everyday colour. Emerald with brushed silver is an old-fashioned pairing done in a modern, uncluttered way, and it earns its place by being the bag you take out when the evening deserves it. It still holds a phone, a cardholder, keys and a lipstick with room left, which is more than most occasion bags manage.

And when to keep it simple

There are days when the point is to not think about it at all. That is what the ivory is for — a warm ivory rather than a cold stark white, kinder against most skin tones, and quiet enough to disappear into whatever you happen to be wearing.