What Colors Go With Black? Partners, Shades and Your Version

Five, if you count the family, and they sit close together. None has a clear hue and all are nearly neutral, so black doesn’t lean red or blue the way a navy does.

What separates the five is depth and a trace of intensity. Onyx and Jet are dark. Black, Eerie Black and Raisin Black are very dark. From lightest to darkest the order is Onyx, Jet, Raisin Black, Eerie Black, Black.

Intensity runs almost the other way. Raisin Black carries the most color of the five, then Onyx and Jet, then Eerie Black, and Black carries the least.

One word, many blacks. Dye, fabric and the lamp over your head all shift it, so a black sweater and a black dress rarely match.

Because black is the heaviest color you can put near a face, and only some palettes can carry that weight.

Three sub-seasons have black in their palette: Deep Winter, True Winter and Bright Winter. All three are high in contrast or higher, and either saturated or very bright, so black holds its own against them. Pure White is their shared partner. Deep Winter adds Fuchsia, True Winter adds Icy Pink, and Bright Winter adds Acid Apple Green.

Deep Autumn is the close one. It is dark and rich, neutral to warm, so the near-black it wears is Raisin Black, matched with Espresso in its palette. Cream and Dark Mustard go with that espresso.

The other eight are not for you. For seven of them, black sits close to Black, which they avoid: Light Spring, Warm Spring, Light Summer, Cool Summer, Soft Summer, Soft Autumn and Warm Autumn.

Light Spring and Light Summer are very light and low in contrast, and the Autumns above are neutral to warm or soft. Bright Spring is the eighth: not for you, with Bright Navy as the stand-in.

If black is in your palette, wear it where you like. Pick the shade by weight. Black is the darkest of the five and Onyx the lightest, so Onyx sits a little softer next to a face.

If black is close or not for you, put something between it and your face. Lay a pale partner between the black and your skin, in a neckline, a scarf or an inner layer, and the black stays a frame. Try the options one at a time and keep the one that makes you look more awake. In my view, too much black kills the black.

Away from the face, black is a base. Pants, a skirt, a bag or heels carry the weight without touching your skin.

The logic of the outfits above is one neutral and one accent. For a fourth, try black pants, a cream sweater and an emerald scarf. The cream sits next to you, the emerald brings the color, and the black stays low.

Skip black with navy and black with charcoal. The two are too close in tone to black, so they blur into one muddy block. The comparison pages sort out charcoal against black and navy against black.

If black is not for you, look for the closest color in your own palette. It’s a stand-in, not a match.

• Bright Spring: Bright Navy
• Light Summer: Soft Navy
• Cool Summer: Navy
• Soft Summer: Grayed Navy
• Soft Autumn: Soft Eggplant
• Warm Autumn: Chocolate

Light Spring and Warm Spring hold nothing like black. Their nearest colors, Light Camel and Golden Brown, are not stand-ins worth recommending.

Black away from the face stays an option for everyone.