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After spending considerable time and money finding your perfect suit, shoes can so often become an afterthought. But really, wearing the wrong shoes with your suit is like playing the World Cup in flip flops – you’ll look awkward and incompetent, no matter how great the suit is.
With just a few simple tips and tricks, anyone can pull together the right suit and shoe combination. In this article, we’ll go over the dress shoe basics, including color, material, and style, and teach you how to pick shoes for every suit color, including navy.
The Best Shoe Colors For Navy Suits
Brown shoes are always a safe bet for navy blue suits. However, the best shade of brown to go for depends on the occasion. Typically, the lighter the shoe, the more informal the occasion, and vice versa.
Here are some expert tips on how to style your navy blue suit and find a shoe combo for every occasion:
- Smart-Casual: opt for light brown or tan shoes in a more relaxed shoe style. Full-brogue, wingtip, or chukka boots work great in more casual settings.
- Semi-Formal: go for an oxblood, cognac, or burgundy shoe in a slightly more formal loafer, Chelsea boot, or semi-brogue.
- Formal: at your most formal events, go for a dark brown or black shoe in a monk strap or derby style. Keep in mind that black tie and white tie events call exclusively for black suits and black shoes.
Pairing Shoes And Suits: The Fundamentals
Contrast
Wearing shoes in slightly lighter shades or darker shades than your suit breaks up your outfit and adds interest to your look, so you’re not wearing all one color.
That’s why navy blue and cognac works so well together –dark and light. The trick is not contrasting too much. Wearing tan shoes with a dark charcoal suit, for example, won’t ever look good, nor would black shoes with a tan suit.
Shoe Material and Style
Suits call for leather shoes, but not all leathers are the same. Full-grain leather is the highest quality leather you can buy, followed by top-grain, split-grain (suede), and patent leather.
Suits made out of rougher fabrics like tweed or heavy cotton look great with more textured shoe materials like suede, while sleeker fabrics like wool or linen look best with full grain or top grain leathers.
Apart from the materials, there are also different dress shoe styles (more on that later). The options are endless when you consider the different styles and colors available, like oxfords, derbies, monk straps, brogues, and many more.
When it comes to navy suits, brown leather shoes in any of these styles will look great; it just depends on where you are going.
Dress Codes
Suits can be worn for all occasions, from smart casual to black tie events, and the shoes you select for your suit can impact the formality of your outfit. As a rule of thumb: the darker the shade, the more formal the outfit. This means that dark color combinations work best for formal occasions.
The most formal dress codes will call for the darkest color pairings – black tuxedo with black shoes. For formal (but not black tie), you should wear a dark blue or charcoal suit with dark brown shoes. For more casual events, you can play with lighter shades.
How To Match Your Dress Shoes With Other Suit Colors
Shades of Blue
Blue suits are some of the most versatile suits you can buy, perfect for business lunches, meetings, weddings, and even semi-formal events. Blue suits come in a variety of different shades, each with a best shoe color fit.
- Light Blue Suits: you can’t go wrong with matching your light blue suit with brown shoes, but feel free to play with contrast here. Try medium or darker shades of brown, like chocolate or cognac.
- Dark Blue Suits: dark blue suits are more formal, but you can dress them down slightly by combining them with light brown dress shoes. If you wish to stay formal and elegant, dark brown, oxblood or black shoes can also be paired with dark blue suits.
- Navy Blue Suits: you can play with different shades of brown when it comes to a navy blue suit. For a less formal look, pair your navy suit with medium brown shoes. For a semi-formal feel, you can opt for dark brown shoes. Should you be heading to a formal event, black dress shoes paired with your navy suit will do the trick.
Shades of Gray
Like blue suits, gray suits are also incredibly versatile, perfect for casual events and formal events alike. Fortunately for owners of gray suits, gray suits work well with practically any shoe color, given the contrast is correct.
- Light Gray Suits: Light gray suits are easy to style with any shoe color. Keeping contrast in mind, pair your light gray suits with dark brown or oxblood shoes, for a chic, elegant look.
- Medium Gray Suits: Medium gray is a timeless suit color, a bit lighter than charcoal but darker than light gray. Consider tan shoes for a more informal style, or cognac and black shoes if you wish to be more formal.
- Charcoal Suits: Charcoal suits, the darkest option, are perfectly complemented by black or dark brown shoes for an efforlessly formal look.
Shades of Brown
Brown suits are unconventional, and finding the right shoe color ultimately comes down to finding the right tone. One thing to note is that black shoes will never work with a brown suit and is considered a fashion faux pas. The safest bet is typically a dark brown shoe.
If you have a light brown or beige suit, then pair it with any shade of brown dress shoes. A darker brown suit can be more difficult to style, but as long as you wear shoes in a shade of brown that is darker than the suit, you cannot go wrong.
Black Suits
Black suits are the most formal of all suit colors. Black suits can only really be paired with black shoes, as any other color will make the final look seem unbalanced and badly styled.
Different Types of Dress Shoe Styles
When it comes to dress shoe styles, the options are endless. Here is a breakdown of every dress shoe style, listed from most formal to least formal.
- Oxfords: oxfords are lace-up shoes that come in a variety of styles. Balmoral and Adelaide oxfords, with minimal detailing, are among the most formal dress shoe options. Cap-toe oxfords,which have horizontal stitching across the toe box, are a great semi-formal option.
- Derby: Derbies are also lace-up shoes, but they have an open lace-up design, meaning you can clearly spot the tongue of the shoe. Like Oxfords, Derbies are one of the most formal shoe types, though you can dress them down too.
- Monk Straps: Monk straps look similar to Derbies, but instead of laces they have buckles in single, double or triple strap styles. Though still quite formal, monk straps are not quite formal enough for white-tie or black-tie events.
- Chelsea Boots: Chelsea boots are ankle boots that have an elastic panel on one or both sides. These boots almost always look good and work with all outfits – from casual to formal.
- Brogues: Broguing refers to the perforated holes found along the edges of the leather and can be seen on Oxfords, Derbies, Monk Straps and many other shoe styles. Brogue shoes are less formal than shoes without broguing but can still be paired with suits for a business casual feel.
- Wingtip: Wingtips are very flamboyant shoes, with broguing along almost all the edges of the shoe. The shoe has a medallion toe, meaning a sharper – but flat-tipped – toe. This shoe works better for less formal events, such as weddings, co*cktail parties, or semi-formal dinners.
- Loafers: Loafers are a more casual slip-on style that look great with light-colored suits worn to more informal, daytime, outdoor occasions like summer weddings or brunches.
- Chukka Boots: Chukka boots have laces and are typically a bit shorter than Chelsea boots. They are great for everyday wear but can work in a pinch with a suit if you have no other dress shoes.
- Boat Shoes: Boat shoes have a relaxed summer vibe to them, perfect with linen or seersucker suits.
Other Ways To Elevate Your Look
Tailoring
A great tailor is one of the best investments you can make, because an ill-fitting suit, no matter how expensive, will always look sloppy. A tailor will modify your suit to fit perfectly to your body, so you look effortlessly chic and put-together.
Tailoring will cost anywhere between $40 – $400, depending on how much of the suit needs to be altered, and typically takes about 1-2 weeks.
Undershirts
Wearing an undershirt with your suit is a great habit to get into. Not only will a great undershirt protect your clothes from sweat stains and odor, it can streamline your entire look, so you look and feel your best at every event.
Key tip –a baggy, oversized undershirt can make you look heavier than you actually are, and do little to wick away moisture. Instead, go for slim-fitting, microfiber undershirts for breathability, odor protection, and comfort.
Accessories
To add some interest, elegance, and a bit of personality to your look, a thoughtful accessory can go a long way. Watches, belts, tie clips, and even sunglasses can bring your whole look together, and for more formal events, cufflinks and pocket squares are stylish, classic options.
To learn more, check out our guide on accessorizing your suit.
Look And Feel Great From Head To Toe
Though wearing a suit can make you feel your absolute best, it is crucial that you follow simple styling rules to look your best as well. With just a few tips and tricks under your belt, the seemingly complicated process of choosing the right dress shoe from an endless list of options is much more straightforward.
While the perfect pair of shoes is certainly an important detail when styling your outfit, investing in what you’re wearing underneath is even more vital. Underfit specializes in making undershirts that give that last bit of support you need to stay confident from head to toe, everytime you wear a suit.
Check out our moisture-wicking, odor resistant, and streamlining crew necks, V-necks and invisible undershirt to find the perfect fit for you.
