Color matching shirts and ties is often made more confusing than it needs to be, especially when you aren’t dealing with neutral colors. So, what color tie do you wear with a pink shirt?
A pink shirt can be worn with a burgundy red tie for a monochromatic aesthetic or a neutral-colored tie such as black or charcoal grey. Pairing the “warm” colored pink shirt with a “cool” color such as forest green can also create a nice sense of harmony.
Although that’s the short answer, as always, there’s more to it. After going through the essential rules to follow when matching ties with pink shirts, I’ll go through 5 combinations as examples as well.
Let’s get to it.
Matching Pink Shirts With Ties – The 3 Rules
Keep things simple and follow these rules and principles whenever you want to wear this combo.
Reading through them and the examples will make a whole lot more sense later on.
1. Keep The Tie Darker Than The Shirt
In general, it’s best to go for a light pink shirt and pair it with a darker tie. Doing the opposite (i.e dark pink shirt plus a lighter tie) is much harder to pull off.
This basic principle should serve you well wherever you color match a shirt and tie.
Keep the shirt lighter than the tie.
2. Stick To One Pattern Only
While this post is mainly about color matching, it’s important to mention patterns as well.
While you could keep things simple and stick to two unpatterned, solid items only (i.e a solid pink shirt and an unpatterned tie), many do like to incorporate patterns.
The basic principle here would be to stick to one patterned item only. This would either be a patterned tie or a patterned shirt. Not both.
Trying to pair a patterned pink shirt with a patterned tie can definitely be done, but it’s more technical and can quite easily go wrong.
3. Consider The Color Wheel
Some people love it and some people hate it, but it’s hard to deny that the color does have some value when it comes to color matching clothes.
Combining pink shirts with ties is no exception.
It’s often made a lot more complicated than it needs to be. Remember these basic principles and it should really be enough to see you through.
- The color wheel is an illustration that shows the relationship between colors.
- It can be broadly split into two halves – “warm” colors and “cool” colors.
- Warm colors (eg. red, orange, yellow) are vibrant and bold.
- Cool colors (eg. blue, green, purple) are calmer.
- The color wheel can be used to group clothes of similar hues together (creating less contrast) or group clothes of very different hues together (creating more contrast).
The color wheel and color “temperatures” (i.e warm and cool) will come in handy when going through the combinations.
5 Easy Pink Shirt And Tie Combinations
Now that you’ve got a good understanding of the main principles behind color matching shirts with ties, let’s go through some great options.
Monochromatic Pink Shirt And Tie
Example: Pink Shirt + Burgundy Red Tie
This is probably the easiest option because you really don’t need to put much thought into it.
However, a “monochromatic” combination doesn’t mean you choose a pink shirt and a pink tie of the same shade.
Instead, you need to pick items in different shades of the same color. One needs to be darker than the other.
Going back to our first “rule” above, you want the tie to be darker than the shirt.
Putting everything together, consider a light pink shirt with a burgundy red tie. The burgundy red is close enough to pink to be considered on the same spectrum but is clearly dark enough to be easily distinguished from it.
Monochromatic color schemes like this are great because they’re versatile and could be worn in formal, business-casual, and smart-casual settings.
Remember, the less contrast you have between the colors of your shirt and tie, the more formal the appearance overall.
Monochromatic combinations don’t have much contrast and can look pretty formal as a result if you wanted them to.
Pink Shirt + Neutral Tie
Example: Pink Shirt + Slate Grey Tie
Consider pairing a pink shirt with a neutral-colored tie.
“Neutral” colors are greys, blacks, and whites. Those are the purest neutrals out there and can easily pair with practically any other color you can think of.
There are, however, some other colors that aren’t technically “neutral” but are still subtle and muted enough to easily pair with other colors as well.
These include navy blue, khaki, and olive green.
Neutrals such as these are great because they can form a great foundation for your wardrobe. You can blend any of them together and come up with very functional outfits with ease.
But if you ever wanted to add a splash of color, you could pop on a brighter/bolder color on top of a neutral foundation of clothes and easily pull it off.
Pink isn’t a neutral color. But you can easily pair a pink shirt with a neutral-colored tie because, well – neutral colors go with everything.
Going back to the “rule” we went through earlier, keep the tie darker than the shirt.
Choose a tie that’s neutral and darker than the light pink shirt you’re wearing.
A pink shirt with a medium or dark grey tie would work. But you could also go for a navy blue, olive green, or black tie instead if you wanted to.
Pink Shirt + “Cool” Colored Tie
Example: Pink Shirt + Forest Green Tie
Things get a little more interesting now because we’re going to refer to the color wheel and the “color temperatures” I talked about earlier on.
Based on the color wheel, pink is a “warm” color.
Pairing a warm color with a cool color is a great way to create harmony and balance.
If you wanted to do this to the extreme, you’d go for complementary colors that sit opposite from each other on the color wheel. We’re going through this combination later on.
But if you wanted to go for a more subtle contrast, choose a “warm” and a “cool” color that sit a little closer to each on the color wheel and aren’t complete opposites.
Using the color wheel it’s easy to pick out potential options.
As you’ll want to pick a tie that has a darker tone than the shirt, consider a medium to dark shade of green or purple to go with the light pink shirt.
Yes, it creates a sense of contrast – but not so much that it’s obvious or in-your-face.
However, it’s important to remember that the contrast between the shirt and the tie will make the combination more casual overall.
It may not be appropriate for more formal settings. However, it may be a great option for more business-casual or smart-casual settings.
If you want a more formal tie for your pink shirt, go for the monochromatic scheme or a neutral tie instead (as per the previous two combos).
Pink Shirt + Warm-Colored Tie
Example: Pink Shirt + Yellow-Orange Tie
Right from the start it’s important to note that pairing warm colors (such as pink) with other warm colors isn’t as easy as it is to pair cool colors with other cool colors.
Pairing warm colors has a much bolder and more striking appearance to it than paired cool colors have.
It’s great for summer social settings where you want a shirt and tie that really pops out – it oozes with personality.
However, not everyone can pull it off. It takes a certain confidence as it really does have an eye-catching look to it.
In addition, it has a very social aesthetic to it.
While paired cool colors could potentially work in work settings, paired warm colors should really only be reserved for social settings – ideally in the summer.
Pink Shirt + Complimentary Tie
Example: Pink Shirt + Chartreuse Tie
When it comes to colors, “complementary” means that they sit directly opposite each other on the color wheel.
The main complementary color combinations you should know about are:
- Blue And Orange
- Yellow And Purple
- Red And Green
Take a look at the color wheel. You could quite confidently say that pink lies opposite a hue that’s greenish-yellow.
A green-yellow tie and a pink shirt would be complementary to each other and would lead to as much contrast as you could possibly get.
Chartreuse is a popular yellow-green shade that would really stand out when wearing a pink shirt, simply due to the large amount of contrast.
As you’d expect, this contrast leads to a very casual overall look. A pink shirt and chartreuse tie wouldn’t be acceptable in formal or work settings.
Instead, reserve a complementary combination such as this for those occasions where you really want to make a statement.
These would almost always be social settings.
Frequently Asked Questions
Let’s finish off with the answers to a couple of frequently asked, yet rarely answered questions.
What Color Tie Goes With A Pink Shirt And Specific Suit Colors?
When wearing a pink shirt and tie, the simplest option would be to go for a classic, neutral-colored suit to make color matching a breeze.
Stick to either a grey, navy blue, or black suit.
Going for a brighter/bolder colored suit would definitely make a statement, but can make the risk of a color conflict with the shirt or tie a lot greater.
Grey, navy blue, and black are neutral enough for any of the five pink shirt and tie combinations above to easily work.
However, here’s are a few examples for each of them:
| Pink Shirt And Grey Suit | Burgundy red or charcoal grey tie |
| Pink Shirt And Navy Suit | Deep purple or royal blue tie |
| Pink Shirt And Black Suit | Charcoal grey or forest green tie |
Remember, these are just examples of what you could go for. All I’ve done is stuck to the combination formats we went through earlier and had fun with it:
- Monochromatic
- Pink shirt + neutral tie
- Pink shirt + “cool” colored tie
- Pink shirt + “warm” colored tie
- Pink shirt + complementary tie
Sticking to these combinations and going for a neutral-colored suit (grey, navy, or black) should work every time.
Can You Wear A Pink Tie With A Pink Shirt?
In general, it’s best to avoid wearing a pink tie with a pink shirt, especially if the shades are too similar to distinguish from each other. A monochromatic scheme is best achieved by choosing a tie that’s in a much darker shade than pink, such as burgundy red.
While it may make sense to try to wear a pink shirt with a pink tie, the outcome can sometimes come across as a little immature.
If you did want to do it, however, definitely choose shades of pink that are different enough from each for the tie to easily stand out from the shirt.
As always, choose a tie that’s in a darker shade to the shirt.
Conclusion
There you have it. Hopefully, it was a pretty no-nonsense guide that simplified color matching pink shirts and ties.
Sticking to basic principles and “rules” should make the process much easier.
Experiment with them and find a couple of combos that work for you.
Enjoy.
Ready Sleek founder. Obsessed with casual style and the minimalist approach to building a highly functional wardrobe. Also a fan of classic, vintage hairstyles.
