Inspirationail’s Colour School – What to Wear with Yellowish-Orange
Welcome to the yellowish-orange week of Team Inspirationail’s Colour School, if you haven’t already be sure to check out lessons on the basics & colour combos as well as red, pink, yellow, green, grey, black, white, brown, beige, blue, orange, purple & rust and this week we are looking at the best colours to match with sunny yellowish-orange.
An Educated Guess
Yellow-orange is a sweet and lively colour that Team Inspirationail loves. It’s not quite as intense as orange and not quite as blinding as yellow – it’s the perfect blend of the two. Warm, happy and easy to wear while being relatively easy to match.
Here are a few tips you can utilize to help you decide what to wear with your favourite yellowish-orange.
Yummy Yellowish-Orange
This is a fantastic colour whatever the weather – it looks great against tanned skin in the summer and provides a sunny spirit lift in the winter. Keeping colours sheer in the winter and bolder in the summer helps to balance the weather and enjoy sunny yellow any time.
Skin Tone Matters
This is an incredibly versatile colour which can easily go from a brighter, bolder shade to a deeper, more intense neutral. Lighter skinned divas should stick to lively, pearly shades or shimmering pastels. Darker skinned lovelies can enjoy everything from bold & creamy to bright & shimmering but should avoid translucent pastels.
Tertiary Yellowish-Orange
Believe it or not, this colour is a favourite of Team Inspirationail and almost all of us have several pieces in this colour family. Yellowish-orange is a tertiary colour so it is slightly more muted than the brighter primary & secondary colours. Our advice is to opt for silky, sensual fabrics, light cotton pieces & simple accessories. To learn more about tertiary colours be sure to check out our colour basics lesson. There are several ways you can use the colour wheel to help you decide what to wear with your yellowish-orange.
Complimentary Colours
Complimentary colours are opposite to each other on the colour wheel and provide a high degree of contrast. The compliment to yellowish-orange is bluish-purple which isn’t a colour we’d ordinarily suggest. If you want to walk on the wild side, try sparkling violets, creamy lavenders or velvety midnight purples.
Analogous Colours
Analogous colours are directly next to each other on the colour wheel, this makes them more monochrome & easier to match. Yellowish-orange’s nearest neighbors are yellow and orange, both of which can be a good match for this sunny hue. Try bold lava oranges, bright happy yellows or opaque tangerines.
Triad Colours
Triad colours are equally spaced out along the colour wheel & like compliments they offer higher contrast options. In yellowish-orange’s case it’s reddish-purple & bluish-green (both also tertiary colours). Both of these options can be great matches for sweet yellow-orange hues. Try warm berries, bold shiny blues or iridescent purples.
Split-Complimentary
Split-complimentary colours start with one base colour and then takes the two colours next to it’s compliment. Sounds confusing, but the concept is simple. When we use yellowish-orange as our base, it’s split-compliments are purple and blue. While bright, both of these shades can work in sparing amounts with our base colour. Try brilliant gem purples, velvety midnight blues or warm golden purples.
Inspirationail’s Picks
We like using our colour wheel to help find combinations we’d never have come up with. However, we also rely heavily on our keen fashion sense to help keep our style lively (luckily we have more than enough of that). For yellow-oranges we like glittering gunmetal greys, sparkling silvers or lovely sea blues.
Your Two Cents
In the end, you have to make the decision…you are the one wearing the yellowish-orange. We’ve given you a few new ideas (and a few tried & true ones). Please leave us your light orange-matching ideas in the comments below, we’d love to hear your ideas! Be sure to also check out the Inspirationail Colour School lesson round-up.