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Home / Blog / Clothing and Style

Neutrals: The Best Clothing Colors For Men

Published on May 22, 2018 by Brock McGoff · Clothing and Style May contain affiliate links (what's this?)

Building a wardrobe full of neutral colors is a great idea for any man – regardless of body type, age, skin tone or style preferences.

Neutral spring outfit

Neutral colors details
chinos | bag (similar) | watch | sneakers

This article explains why I love wearing neutral colors and why all of my wardrobe staples are in neutral colors.

Neutrals colors include black, white, any shade of grey, beige/cream and navy.

Neutral colors

Even if you only wore these colors, you could be well-dressed and stylish every single day, no matter the occasion.

If you throw in a couple more versatile colors, such as olive and light blue, you’ve got a complete wardrobe.

Here’s the best part: if you like other, less standard colors, they will also work with this palette.

For example, if you love wearing burgundy or look great in yellow, both of those colors work well on top of a neutral wardrobe.

You don’t have to add extra colors, but it’s very easy to do so.

Let’s look at some of the benefits of wearing neutral colors.

All Your Clothes Look Good Together

With a neutral wardrobe, putting together an outfit or packing for a trip is a breeze. You can almost get dressed in the dark because everything goes together.

Grey polo with olive chinos

Brown leather laptop bag

Here’s one example: a light grey shirt can be worn with pants that are black, charcoal, white, navy, tan or olive.

This comes in clutch during last minute packing for a vacation or business trip!

You Can Always Add Color (But you Can’t Remove It)

If you want to be more colorful, you can always add splashes of color to a neutral wardrobe. But if all your clothes are bright and colorful, it’s impossible to remove that color for a more subdued look.

Here’s what I mean…

Walking in front of purple wall

If you’re wearing a navy suit and white dress shirt, and you want to keep things understated (say for a job interview), you can wear a black knit or grey silk tie.

But, if you’re wearing that same suit and shirt to a wedding, you can wear a gold, orange or green tie, along with a colorful pocket square and/or socks. This will add plenty of flare to the outfit with very little effort (or money).

Neutral colors outfit
raincoat (sold out) | polo (sold out) | chinos

If you don’t own neutral colors, however, this doesn’t work. If you don’t have the navy suit and white dress shirt to build on top of, you can’t choose between blending in and standing out.

For example, if you only own a pink dress shirt or a burgundy suit, your only choice is to be colorful and bold, which isn’t ideal for many situations (interviews, funerals, etc.).

Easy to Control Your Contrast

As a shorter man, I prefer low contrast outfits. In other words, I try to minimize the difference in tone between my top and bottom halves.

  • White shirt + black pants = high contrast
  • Navy shirt + charcoal pants = low contrast

But that doesn’t mean I always have to wear dark colors, as some style “advice” for shorter men would suggest…

I love wearing light colors, but I want to make sure those outfits are also low contrast.

Neutral colors spring outfit

With a neutral wardrobe, this is easy. If I want to wear dark colors, I’ll go with something like a dark grey shirt and navy pants (or shorts), and I’ll top it off with a navy field jacket, grey topcoat or dark brown leather jacket.

If I want to wear light colors, I have plenty of options:

  • Olive chinos (or shorts) + light grey shirt
  • Light wash jeans + white shirt
  • Tan chinos (or shorts) + white shirt

With these lighter color combos, I’ll usually keep my outerwear light as well. For example, I’ll wear an olive field jacket, tan raincoat or light green windbreaker.

The point is, neutral colors make putting together low contrast outfits very easy, even if you like to wear lighter colors.

Starter Neutral Wardrobe

If you were building a wardrobe from scratch, here’s what you would want to buy first:

  • Navy suit
  • Grey wool trousers
  • Khaki chinos
  • Olive chinos
  • Dark blue jeans
  • Light blue jeans
  • Olive chinos shorts
  • Khaki chinos shorts
  • White dress shirt(s)
  • Grey casual button up
  • Light blue OCBD
  • Black/grey/white t-shirts
  • Navy field jacket (or bomber)
  • Black/brown leather jacket
  • Tan raincoat (or Harrington)
  • White leather/canvas sneakers
  • Black Oxfords
  • Brown brogues
  • Grey/tan suede boots

With these 21 items, you’d be covered for pretty much any occasion. But if you wanted to be more unique or really loved a different color, you could easily add more to this collection.

Any of these additions would work with 80% of this wardrobe:

  • Pink dress shirt
  • Yellow OCBD
  • Burgundy bomber
  • Red striped t-shirt
  • Forest green sweater
  • Burnt orange knit tie
  • Blue suede chukkas

You get the point. It’s very easy to add personality and individuality to a neutral wardrobe without sacrificing versatility (i.e., without making it harder to put together an outfit or pack for a trip).

Closing Thoughts

I truly believe that all of your basic wardrobe staples should fall into a neutral color palette. This will make it very easy to build a lasting, versatile collection of clothing that’s ready for any occasion and won’t go out of style.

Do you like wearing neutral colors? Let me know in the comments section!

Clothing and Style color, wardrobe

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About Brock McGoff

The Modest Man founder, Brock is an aspiring minimalist who enjoys working out, spending time with his family, discovering new brands and creating great content.

Background: Brock McGoff has a bachelor's degree in psychology and a professional background in digital marketing. He believes that men's fashion is just one facet of self-improvement, and he started The Modest Man to help regular guys feel more confident by improving their appearance.

An east coast native, Brock currently lives in Arizona with his wife and daughter. When he's not working, he spends time with family, training BJJ, reading/listening to books and podcasts, and unsuccessfully trying to decide which movie to stream.

Expertise: Brock has built a men's lifestyle YouTube channel with over 400k subscribers. He's also worked as the creative marketing manager in a men's apparel startup. Brock has been quoted in, mentioned by or featured in publications like Esquire, Huff Post, Men's Health, WWD and Forbes.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

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    Got questions? Want to share your opinion? Comment below!

  1. Steven says

    February 23, 2023 at 12:51 pm

    I enjoyed this article and find the information useful.
    I’m curious about the color brown and whether it serves well as a neutral to use in place of some of these recommended pieces. I feel that there may be a warmth and versatility to the many shades and tones of brown (cream, beige, mustard, etc.), or does it risk too much contrast compared to the staple neutrals discussed here?

    I welcome any insight and/or suggestions.

    Thank you.

    Reply
    • Brock McGoff says

      March 1, 2023 at 3:44 pm

      Yup, brown/tan/cream all qualify as versatile, neutral colors!

      Reply
  2. Ger says

    February 2, 2023 at 11:06 pm

    I think neutral colors are great in the short term but very limiting wardrobe choices for men. Men need and deserve more color choices for their clothes. Why does society limit men’s choices in terms of colors (and so many other things, including clothing types and beyond? If women can wear colorful garments, men should be able to do as well.

    Reply
  3. Andrew says

    March 30, 2022 at 6:10 pm

    Great article as usual, that is why you are and you always will be one of the best menswear bloggers of all time. God bless you. Have a good day.

    Reply
  4. John says

    April 14, 2019 at 10:40 am

    Hi Brock! Why do you suggest Olive Chinos as an item to buy first instead of Navy Chinos? In many other guides, Navy Chinos are usually suggested ahead of other colors. Would be great to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks.

    Reply
  5. Arquímides says

    November 11, 2018 at 7:42 am

    Hi Brock! Thank you the information as always. Could you please share the information about the hand bags/briefcase you have on the photos? Thanks again.

    Reply
  6. Adam says

    August 12, 2018 at 4:08 am

    What is the brand of the messenger bag in the post?

    Reply
  7. Mike says

    June 7, 2018 at 2:49 pm

    Hi Brock, any thoughts on the new breed of watches i.e. smart watches and fitbits etc.

    Reply
    • Brock says

      June 7, 2018 at 2:50 pm

      I’ve never worn one actually. The alarm clock and sleep tracking look interesting, and the ability to leave the house without taking your phone would be awesome. Do you wear one?

      Reply
  8. Richard Thurston says

    June 5, 2018 at 2:14 pm

    Great article ! Love the section about the essentials for a mans wardrobe

    Reply
  9. Anita says

    May 31, 2018 at 5:20 am

    Well illustrated article, I’ve learnt a lot on neutrals thanks a lot.

    Reply
  10. Randy says

    May 30, 2018 at 8:15 pm

    Neutral makes a lot of sense now. I used to like a Navy Polo over off white denim. Now at 5-7, 160 lbs, changing some of my ideas. Losing 55 lbs and shrinking over an inch changed my mindset.

    Reply
  11. George E Givens Jr says

    May 25, 2018 at 10:33 pm

    There was a time I only bought cuffed slacks, dress or chino, corduroy (not jeans). Now I’ve noticed men are just simply rolling up there slacks and not wearing socks in good or even mild weather. At my age I don’t feel rolled up is appropriate except in some very specific situations such as very casual.

    Reply
  12. Mateo says

    May 25, 2018 at 9:56 am

    Brock, nice work on this post.

    A couple questions on the chinos. First, how do you like the fit of the Peter Manning Slim Fit chinos? Are they closer to a Banana Republic Aiden slim or Fulton skinny fit?

    Also, I noticed you choose to cuff your chinos. It seems like a lot of guys are doing this today with both jeans and chinos. As a modest male, I’ve always gone with the rule of thumb not to cuff pants, as that breaks the length of the pant leg, which is detrimental for those of us with shorter than average leg lengths.

    Thanks,

    Mateo

    Reply
  13. Jennifer Stone says

    May 24, 2018 at 6:08 pm

    This article will be a fabulous guide for my modest man’s wardrobe revision. Thank you!

    Reply
  14. James says

    May 23, 2018 at 8:23 am

    Great article, as usual. Well written, relevant information, easy to understand, good pictures which illustrate the text. That is why you are among the best of the menswear bloggers!

    Reply
    • Brock says

      May 23, 2018 at 12:41 pm

      Thanks for the kind words, James. Much appreciated!

      Reply

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