Walk down a busy office area in your city and observe every man with a shirt and tie. Out of them, how many of them are wearing their ties properly with the shirt that they’re wearing? The odds are probably 1 out of 10. Regardless of how expensive, sexy and expertly tailored the shirt you’re wearing, none of that shit will matter if you don’t know what kind of tie you should be wearing with it.

There are a few basic rules you should remember when you’re deciding which tie to wear.

The Rules

The first rule is that you should decide whether you’re going to wear a shirt that’s solid colored or patterned. You pick your tie based on the shirt you’re wearing and not the other way around. This is the most important principle.

The second rule is that you have to take colors into consideration. If you’re wearing a solid white, anything goes. If you’re wearing maybe blue or something bolder such as green, you need to think what colors would compliment it. For example, with a green shirt you would probably wear a tie that’s brown or orange-ish.

The third rule is that you CAN mix patterns and patterns. Be EXTREMELY careful. If you are unsure, just go with a safe bet. However, if you want to mix things up, wearing patterns with patterns can look extremely good. If you want to rock patterns with other patterns, you should always make sure they are NOT the same. Meaning, if your shirt has a plaid pattern, you can wear a tie with a dotted or striped pattern but you should not wear one with also a plaid pattern.

In order to pull this off perfectly, you have to pay attention to the varying weights of the pattern and the direction of the pattern. Normally, I don’t like to wear stripes with stripes. However, if your shirt has thin pinstripes and your tie has thick diagonal stripes, then it’s fair game. Same goes for any other pattern. Just experiment around various weights and patterns for both ties and shirts and see what you prefer.

Other advice

• Never wear paisley. Leave that for your curtains or bed sheets.
• If your shirt has a bunch of colors, wearing a tie with any of the color that’s featured on the shirt is usually okay. If the shirt has orange and blue lines, you can wear either an orange or blue tie. Be careful about what kind of pattern is on the tie though.
• Anybody can notice when you’re wearing a cheap tie and that can ruin everything. Ties are surprisingly expensive, but they’re well worth it. Go to Macy’s and you can get some quality ones for about $25-$30. If you want to look even more proper, retailers like Banana Republic have very nice ties, but are quite steep ($60-$80). Look out for sales as well. ALDO Accessories has awesome skinny ties for under $18 which is a steal.

Try something bold and daring and let me know what you come up with!