Monochrome vs. Tonal Outfits: What’s the Difference + How to Do Both

Feb 2

Whether complex or simple, style is about delivering a message about who you want to be in a situation. The first thing anyone sees about your outfit is usually its color, so the easiest way to deliver a message is through that medium. What color do you want to wear and what will it say about you?

At the recent inauguration of President Biden, we saw lots of purple. The reasons for wearing the color likely varied slightly from woman to woman who wore it, but the overall message seemed to be one of unity and bipartisanship. Blue and red put together is purple.

In your daily life, you may need a statement as bold as Michelle Obama’s deep wine look or something softer like light neutrals. Either way, you can achieve a monochrome look pretty easily. Monochrome looks are defined by an outfit in a single hue — a.k.a. color. To pull this off correctly, you need to get specific with the color. Just plain orange won’t do.

What type of orange are you wearing? Burnt orange, peach, and tangerine are all different, so pick one, then pull together all the elements of your outfit in this one version of orange.

For tonal dressing, it’s a bit different.

To dress in tonal colors, you’ll choose a general color like orange, red, green, or blue. Then you’ll insert different variations of this color in one look to create a complex marriage of many tones.

Here’s how to do both…