Swatch Combo 8 - Kid-o-rama

Wow! The big block of yellow breaks up the sickly baby pink and blue pastels down the bottom.

Swatch Combo 7 - CEO Chic

The subtle warmth of the grey makes this combination friendly, while the blue and black make it serious and stylish.

Swatch Combo 6 - Rosy the Mermaid

Softly does it... the middle blue/green gives it a bit of a cool/non pastel edge to the other soft pastel colours.

Swatch Combo 5 - Water in the Medicine Cabinet

Ok my names for these just keep getting more and more ridiculous! Sorry! I think the slightly dulled red makes it here. If the red were too bright it would just look ridiculous. Another example of a combo that works well with equal colour proportions.

Swatch Combo 4 - Modern Beesting

This is a trendy one these days... using yellow with grey. In fact any bright colour with grey. I like it. The yellow is deep and slightly dulled which makes it subtle and warm.

Swatch Combo 3 - Blushing African

What's great about this combo is that they all work together in equal proportion. A nice, sturdy scheme... no in your face 'highlights' or 'accents'.

Swatch Combo 2 - Mouldy Upholstery

A very subdued palette... these shades if lightened however could provide an incredibly bright colour scheme. I like them better dulled.

Swatch Combo 1 - Plum on the Sea

I dug out my paint swatches today and thought I better do a series of posts on them. So what follows are a number of combinations I have come up with which I find appealing and the ridiculous names I have given them! I have obviously also tagged them all, so just look at the tags to find out about the specific characteristics of each colour scheme.

Pink = Trendy

Over the past year I have seen a crap load of things designed to the scheme of black , white and light pink. I quite like it myself. I think it's something to do with the fact that black and white together are quite stark and sophisticated, so bringing in lots of light pink is sort of like a funny, playful way of mixing things up. I do think however that people may get sick of this current colour trend in the near future. There's only so long something can go on being trendy until it gets shelved for the next twenty years to await its 'vintage' return.

From visuelle.co.uk

Freshen Up

The pine and white look for interiors seems to be very common nowadays. I like how here though, just a tiny bit of really intense bright pink has been added in. It brings this current interior trend into its own and gives it a bit more personality and life.

From visuelle.co.uk

Tavi

This is 13 yo blogger extraordinaire Tavi, who is taking the fashion world by storm. Here she sports a refreshing, fun colour combination. It features complimentary colours blue and orange. The blue is more predominant- there are two shades of it. The orange just acts as a bright accent, and the white breaks up the boldness of the blues and orange. I really love this! It reminds me of a rainbow, even though it is only using three colours! Can't forget the wall colour too and how that adds to the proportion of blue in the photo. It would be a very different story if the wall was orange!!!

Rodarte - NYFW SS10

Rodarte's SS10 show showcased an apocalyptic vision of flames, body decoration, scarification and destruction. The avant garde construction of the garments and the colour palette used worked together critically to create this well-realised collection.


ABOVE: Here you can see the use of red as an integral colour in the collection. When mixed and morphed with black, it takes on quite a violent and intense feeling. I think this is a really effective example only two colours being used together. It explores vivid patches of bright red as well as large dark shades of red and the grounding element of black.


ABOVE: This is an extension of the red outfit above, as now it is adding in white. The small flecks of white that are glimpsed in the skirt give it a slightly lighter, more tribal feeling. This to me again is another good example of using only two or three colours together. They work in the right proportions together to create Rodarte's apocalypse concept.

ABOVE: A completely earthy feeling is given off by this outfit. No loud patches of colour, just a simple progression from light brown tints to dark brown patterns and black. The patterned parts do well to break up the blocks of colour.

ABOVE: This is an interesting outfit. It is underpinned by the same natural look of the above outfit, but has an unexpected flash of fluro yellow/green in it. The lurid quality of the colour cuts through the earthiness and puts it into a level where it is almost space age (but still inextricably linked to nature somehow?!)