The stage, proverbially at least, is set. You’ve got that swanky new suit. A navy blue, single breasted elusive piece of beauty. With a crisp shirt to add. You’ve even got a range of exquisite ties to discern from. But the question looms – ‘should I opt for a navy tie today’. The navy silk tie, as time tested as the suit and tie themselves, has been a wardrobe staple for all walks of dapper gentleman, and with ample reason. In this detailed guide, we will cover how & when to wear a navy tie.

Why Choose A Navy Tie?

Navy blue ties have been considered as trusted and timeless as their black tie counterparts. Navy ties are considered incredibly versatile, and generally allow you to dress your ensembles up (with the exception of black tie events). As a general rule of thumb, progressively scaling the darkness of your layers within a suit adds a strong element of sophistication, and what better way to finish off that sequence than with a navy tie, set against a lighter colored shirt.

Additionally, navy portrays a sense of confidence, trustworthiness and authority. These characteristics make navy ties highly versatile, allowing them to be worn across a range of settings, whether they are solid, foulard (geometric), polka dot, paisley or striped silk ties.

Navy Tie Settings

Interview

Your quintessential navy tie setting, an interview allows you to come across in an appropriate fashion. Navy blue provides you with a timeless, neutral look, making it a perfect candidate (no pun intended) for your next interview setting. While we are strong advocates of pairing your navy tie with a charcoal grey or navy blue suit, navy colored ties can work exceptionally well with blue, brown or tan suits.  

If wearing a solid navy tie, pair it with a solid, finely striped or microcheckered white, blue or light grey shirt and a navy blue or charcoal grey suit. Alternatively, a foulard (geometric) navy tie or striped navy tie can work with a solid white, blue or grey shirt.

A wider spaced navy tie will work exquisitely with a solid, finely striped or microcheckered shirt. As a general rule of thumb, when matching patterns:

1. Opt for a difference in pattern. E.g, striped against microcheckered. Or a foulard / geometric tie against a solid shirt.
2. More important than the first rule is to opt for differences in pattern scale. Therefore, a wider striped tie against a finely striped shirt will work more effectively than a polka dot tie against a checkered shirt, if the pattern spacing within the polka dot pattern is roughly equivalent to the pattern spacing of the checkered shirt. They key is to look for visual contrast.

Please feel free to view The Dark Knot’s range of Navy Ties for an interview setting.

A solid navy tie is the perfect tie for an interview setting! Featuring The Dark Knot's Winsted Blue Navy Silk Tie.

Business

Given the confidence, trustworthiness and authority signals that a navy blue tie emits, business settings, whether it’s daily work or an important presentation, make the perfect settings to strut one. Navy ties match a range of colors, and hence, your navy ties can be worn with a solid, microcheckered or finely striped white, blue, pink, light green or grey shirt (depending on your tie pattern).

Please feel free to view The Dark Knot’s range of Navy Ties for daily work settings!

A Navy Tie is ideal for a business setting! Courtesy of www.hespokestyle.com

Networking Event

Looking to dress up for a networking event or cocktail party? A navy blue tie, with its connotations of trustworthiness, confidence and authority, make for the perfect accessory. Keep your navy tie to a classic, such a solid, foulard or polka dot tie to make that perfect impression.

Daily Wear

Looking to make a style statement with your every day settings? Whether it's for an evening out with friends or some weekend casual prep time, a narrower width navy tie, such as a silk knit tie, will work exquisitely. Knit Ties often provide unconventional pattern types, such as horizontal stripes (in line with the square ends of a knit tie) that can really make you stand out. Pair a striped knit tie with a microcheckered shirt for a look that truly elevates your casual style game.

Please feel free to view The Dark Knot’s range of navy ties that can be used for daily wear / an evening out.

Few items can make you stand out in a less than formal setting like a navy striped tie! Featuring The Dark Knot’s Rosendale Stripes Navy / Red Silk Knit Tie!

Date Night

What better way to introduce one of your navy ties than date night, where looking good makes you feel good! If you are opting for a more sophisticated setting, a solid or foulard navy silk tie will work perfectly, while a silk knit tie will work great in a more casual, relaxed setting!

Please feel free to view The Dark Knot’s range of Navy Ties for Date Night!

A Navy Knit Tie is the perfect way to make an impression on that first date! Courtesy of www.thedarkknot.com

How To Match Your Navy Tie To Your Suits & Shirts

While a navy tie is highly versatile, knowing how to match your navy tie to your shirt and suit colors is of paramount importance, as is pattern matching.

When attempting to understand color theory (trying to ascertain which colors complement each other), a color wheel is the best place to start. A color wheel is largely divided into two camps: Warm & Cool Colors. Warm colors, such as red and yellow, exude vibrance. Conversely, cool colors are associated with calm, such as blue, green and purple.

The concept of a color wheel allows one to wear colors in union, or harmonize colors. Harmonizing colors is the process of creating a balanced look.

A color wheel is the perfect way to understand color theory, balancing warm and cooler colors against each other. Courtesy of www.uxplanet.org

What effectively creates color harmony is maintaining a balance between warm and cool colors, helping create discernable visual contrast.

The Dark Knot Style Tip: When first starting out with matching tie colors to your suits and shirts, it is best to progressively work with the below list and work your way up towards more complex color matching as you gain confidence in your sartorial abilities.

Monochromatic Color Scheme

One of the easiest ways to begin your tie color matching experimentation process, a monochromatic scheme pairs a lighter variant of your tie color with your tie. With a navy tie, you would therefore opt for a solid, microcheckered or finely striped lighter blue shirt (more on pattern matching below). This creates a sense of familiarity, and allows your darker colored tie to stand out against your lighter colored shirt.

A Navy Tie against a light blue shirt provides for an extremely elegant look. Progressively wearing darker shades of blue allows your attire to truly stand out. Featuring The Dark Knot’s Berkshire Abstract Navy / Turquoise Silk Tie.

The Dark Knot Style Tip: When choosing tie colors to pair with your shirts, opting for progressively darker colors as you move further out will create the most visual interest. Simply put, a burgundy tie can work well against a light pink shirt, and a navy tie will pop off perfectly against a lighter blue shirt. While the inverse can be done, this typically creates a more casual look. The goal, when coordinating your ensembles, is to be so impeccably coordinated, that the viewers attention is drawn to your face, where it should be!

Analagous Color Scheme

The next step in your color matching progression involves matching colors that are on the same side of the color wheel (e.g cooler colors with cooler colors). In the context of strutting a navy tie, a light green or light purple / lilac shirt will create a sense of familiarity.

Analagous color schemes, by pairing two colors on the same side of the color wheel, create less contrast, but more familiarity, leading to a relatively soothing effect on the eyes. As a result of the soothing effect of analogous color schemes, it can be used in daily work situations or in more social settings.

A Navy Blue Tie works exquisitely with this light pink shirt, with warmer colors (pink) balancing out / harmonizing with cooler colors (blue)!

The Dark Knot Style Tip: To pull off an exemplary stylistic look, have one of these triadic colors be the dominant color of your tie, and have the color of your shirt as a background color in your tie. With your navy ties, a navy tie with an element of pink or burgundy in it (as is the case above) would contrast perfectly with a lighter pink shirt!

Complementary Colors

Complementary color schemes entail pairing a color that is diametrically across your color on the color wheel. Hence, this scheme involves choosing the strongest counterpoint to your color, or the warmest color for your relevant cool color.

Because this wouldn’t work within the context of navy ties, we will take the opposite example. Pairing an orange tie with a light blue shirt, in this instance, will create the strongest element of contrast.

Matching Navy Tie Patterns

Just as with matching tie colors, the objective with coordinating your tie patterns to your suits and shirts should be to create contrast. Contrary to conventional wisdom, pattern variation is less important than pattern proportion / scale.

Hence, opt for scaling up your patterns as you work your way out. Start off with a solid, microcheckered or finely striped shirt (where the pattern spacing is minimal) and pair these with wider spaced tie patterns, such as larger spaced foulard / geometric patterns, paisley patterns, polka dot patterns or even larger spaced plaid patterns or striped ties.

Here are some specific examples of matching tie patterns:

Solid Navy

Given that solid navy ties, are, by definition, without pattern, these ties would pair perfectly with a solid, microcheckered or finely striped white, light blue, pink or grey shirt. The lack of any visible pattern makes tie matching incredibly easy here.

A solid navy tie can work exquisitely with a range of underlying shirt patterns. Featuring The Dark Knot’s Domaso Grenadine Navy Silk Tie.

Navy Striped Tie

If going with a regimental (classic university striped tie) striped tie, pair it with a solid, finely striped or microcheckered white, grey, light blue (monochromatic) or pink (triadic) colored shirt.

A regimental navy and blue striped silk tie pairs perfectly with this solid white shirt. Featuring The Dark Knot’s Canterbury Regimental Navy / Blue Silk Tie.

Navy Foulard Tie (smaller spaced)

For a smaller spaced navy foulard / geometric silk tie, we suggest pairing your ties with a solid light white, blue, pink or grey shirt. With insufficient spacing within your tie pattern, pairing your tie with a solid shirt would work best, as using patterned shirts would create conflict with your patterned ties.

A smaller patterned navy foulard silk tie perfectly complements this solid white shirt! Featuring The Dark Knot’s Chelsea Foulard Navy / Red Silk Tie!

Navy Foulard Tie (larger spaced)

With larger spaced foulard tie patterns, we suggest pairing it with a solid, microcheckered or finely striped white, light blue, light pink or grey shirt. The pattern spacing of a larger spaced foulard tie allows it to be worn with a range of underlying shirt patterns.

A navy blue polka dot tie perfectly complements this solid light blue shirt! Courtesy of www.johnhenric.com

Navy Paisley Tie

A Navy Paisley Tie, given its pattern spacing, would pair perfectly with a solid, finely striped or microcheckered white, light blue, light pink or grey shirt. The pattern spacing of a navy paisley tie allows it to be worn with a range of underlying shirt and suit patterns.

A stunning navy blue & brown paisley silk tie, the pattern spacing of this tie allows it to be perfectly matched with a finely striped white and blue shirt. Featuring The Dark Knot’s Exeter Paisley Blue / Brown Silk Tie!

Please feel free to view The Dark Knot’s entire range of Navy Silk Ties!

Navy Tie Fabrics

Navy Ties, like all other ties, come in a variety of fabrics. Your choice of fabric will often depend on the type of occasion that you are dressing for.

Silk Ties

Silk ties, with their characteristics of durability, sheen and drape, are the most popular choice of tie in the marketplace. Navy Silk Ties are therefore incredibly popular, and can be worn across a range of settings, whether it is for daily work, an important presentation or the next wedding reception that you are attending!

Silk Knit Ties

Knit ties, characterized by their open weave and square ends (versus triangular, pointed ends for conventional silk ties) make them your ideal complement for more casual settings, such as a first date or an evening out with friends. Knit ties also happen to lend textural variation to your ensembles, providing your attire with an elevated level of visual interest.

A Navy Knit Tie looks absolutely fantastic with a double breasted sports jacket! Featuring The Dark Knot’s Cherry Creek Navy & Yellow Silk Knitted Tie.

To view The Dark Knot’s range of Knit Ties, click here.

Linen / Cotton Ties

Linen & Cotton ties, given their lighter weight properties, are best suited (no pun intended) for the spring & summer months. Their airy feel make them the perfect complement for more tropical climates.

A Navy Linen Tie is the perfect complement to a spring & summer suit. Courtesy of www.thegentlemansjournal.com

Grenadine Ties

A Grenadine Tie is a textured, woven silk tie that looks incredibly elegant. While a grenadine tie somewhat resembles a knit tie, a knitted ties are for more informal occasions. A grenadine tie is one that is constructed from Italian Silk, having been woven as opposed to being knitted.

A grenadine tie is manufactured through a loom, with the weft and warp intricately twisted around each other to create highly textured, detailed fabric. The texture of a grenadine tie makes it highly versatile. Pair your grenadine tie with a tailored outfit, or a sports jacket / blazer for a more relaxed, yet highly sophisticated look.

To view The Dark Knot’s range of Grenadine Ties, please click here.

A Navy Grenadine Tie is the perfect way to elevate your look! Featuring The Dark Knot’s Domaso Grenadine Navy Silk Tie.

And that’s a wrap for this one! We hope that you have enjoyed reading this as much as we did writing it!