Unless there is a colour in between
This is a saying my mother would repeat to me as a child. Fortunately I realise that this is a rule that is made to be broken.
Blue and green together are one of my favourite colour combinations. It’s so restful and reminds me of a blue sky, over a turquoise sea, with some lovely green palm tree fronds waving in a gentle breeze. Nature puts these colours together all the time, so why not repeat the pattern and wear them?
The trick, of course, when combining colours, is to ensure that they are all of the same intensity and undertone. These are all cool undertone and fairly bright intensity with medium value, so they work well together.
Today I’m wearing a cobalt skirt with an emerald green top and a turquoise jacket with a lighter shade of turquoise and cobalt beads. What’s not to love?
They are my favorites!
I love blue and green and have done an Indian version of almost the same shades here: http://goo.gl/qv6e6j. Love that necklace!!
They look fantastic together, I am puzzled as to why anyone would think otherwise…
What I am still wondering though is whether soft and muted vs clear and bright are synonyms or not. Your colour analysis is the one I would turn to, but the one with the seasons is still v much out there and accidentally stumbled upon a webpage the other day. Just seems completely muddled to me..
Here http://www.cardiganempire.com/2012/08/color-analysis-3-degrees-of-cool.html Courteney Cox and Liv Tyler fall into different categories, when their colouring looks identical me!
Just how many catogories can people fall into?? The one with the seasons identifies far too many catogories in my opinion!
Your photos and links are lovely! I too had heard growing up that blue & green didn’t go together, just as dark blue/black, brown/black, pink/red, etc weren’t supposed to either. I so enjoy how you give us instructive and understandable guidelines while also encouraging us to rethink “rules” and see more possibilities!
Beautiful colours and even better together. It’s pretty dreary here in Toronto and you’ve brought a breath of tropical sea and sky into my day. Thanks!
Really great! Thank you.
But… not my colours. I often wear kaki with iceblue, maybe it’s the same family 😉
I wear them to but in the colors for a summer type. The colors you wearing are to intense for my. I just love them
You can do a softer version in your own palette
Beautiful colour on you. They remind me of the amazing colour combinations found in tropical birds and fish.
The version I learnt as a child is “blue and green should never be seen, except in a washing machine!” I still hear it in my head every time I put blue and green together…and wonder whether I should be.
Love that! I don’t understand where that saying came from – but it’s so not right!
I very much agree with the rule blue and green do not look good or match at all, maybe if one was a pattern with multi shades that had that shade of blue then it would match. I do not think navy goes well with black either so what do I know. I love shades of blue/green and have found it very hard to use them at least within my home due to how different the colors can be from one fabric or paint …..
oops, I just said the same thing as Rachelle about learning ‘blue green…washing machine,” but I have no idea where I typed it…maybe I followed some link and ended up putting it there. ha ha! Oh well.
LOVE the colors on you.
http://LifeinFont.com
as a child I learned that blue and green should never be seen unless there’s yellow in between.
My mother would say “a colour” in between – but really – they go so well together – so just no need!
*de-lurking at last after two years* Hi Imogen.
I think I can shed some light about the blue + green taboo.
According to historian Michel Pastoreau and his interesting book series about colour (‘Blue’ in this case) it’s rooted in Western medieval dye licenses/regulations: every fabric dye hue was ‘native’ so to speak rather than achieved by mixing different hues. It was due both to ‘colour purity’ = do not mix = do not contaminate pure colours mindset and to technical reasons…. blue dyers didn’t have the rights to use yellow dye and viceversa. Even if someone ever got the idea of trying to mix their dyes (banning random chemical reactions and random colour output of mixing together plants extracts with mineral powders with a variety of other substances used back then 😉 ) it would not have been legally possible for them + the ‘rival’ dyers and their supplies were located in different areas – not very handy -.
Thanks Eli – both for reading and for sharing – this is really fascinating!