Shades in Clothing

A color becomes shaded when you add black to it. Adding more and more black darkens the color until it is fully blacked out.

Therefore, darkening a color makes it be perceived as less saturated as well. Why just perceived, you ask? Well, effectively the color is still there. There’s just a lot of black added to it. If you were to take away color, you always get a value of gray (not black). More on grays and saturation here.

From black to saturated blue-purple: The 50+ shades (more like infinite).

Shades of colors typically make clothing seem more elegant and formal. Wearing darker colors makes you stand out less and makes you blend in more. These are the reasons why it’s usually best to wear darker clothing to more serious formal events or business occasions.

Shaded colors are most often used (in fashion) as canvas or base colors. They provide a solid (mostly neutral) foundation to build the rest of the outfit upon.

Shades are rarely used as accent colors because they don’t “pop” out as much as bright or light colors. Neutral and tinted hues are best suited to be accents.

Interestingly though, darker colors are very suited to be sub-accent colors due to them being less conspicuous.

The opposite of shade is called a tint. More on shades and tints and how to use them in this article >