I have written before about how in January I generally take 2 sartorial approaches, depending on the day. My choice may be to reflect the weather, color and cold sense that covers our world, or I stand against the dark, gloomy season dressed with colorful aspiration. An attempt to will the frivolity of summer into being! Today, is a day of the latter.
It's so cold here today, things feel so dark. We don't know how long it will be dark, but it certainly is dark. We can't deny that. But, I can carry on with dignity, and hope to bring some warmth and beauty to my little world. I can reject that which surrounds and permeates in an attempt to step outside of what is. Maybe that is what this navy blazer with a blue university stripe, paired with a pink and green rep tie is. I'm imagining a salmon swimming up Niagara Falls, but with a sense of joyful positivity, rejecting which is.
Some people hate pink and green. I, obviously, am not one of them. My wife and I were in high school in the early 2000s, living around the orbit of the whole neo-prep emergence. My wife always associates pink and green with that time period. Everything was so colorful and very over the top. For her, she can't escape the association and she is just fine to leave it behind. For myself, I do associate pink and green with that time a bit, but not in such a negative way, I don't think of pink and green being so locked in that time, and so I don't immediately think of then, when I wear it. So, I will wear them together. In spring and summer I obviously will wear them more often. Pale pink boat shoes paired with green Bermuda shorts and a white OCBD with a navy blazer on top.
As for the setting found in the picture at the top of this piece. There are stripes on both the university stripe OCBD and the rep tie. The size difference in the patterns with the rep tie being very large equal size stripes and the university stripe being very small equal size stripes creates a harmonious appearance with no clashing or crowding. That both stripes on both pieces are of equal size and with a great difference in size between the pieces, helps create a very balanced, stable and symmetrical feeling within the setting.
In the above picture, the tie is vintage J. Crew and the OCBD is from Brooks Brothers. If you are looking for some great rep tie color combinations looks for old J. Crew on ebay.