Deep Winter Men: Suits, Shirts and Colours That Work

Deep Winter is the one season where the standard menswear uniform is already right. Black tailoring, crisp white shirts and true navy were more or less designed for this colouring.

Deep Winter men run deep and cool: dark hair, often near-black, skin that can be any depth but reads cool or neutral-cool, and eyes in dark brown, deep hazel or cool green. Contrast between hair, skin and eyes is high, and that contrast is the thing your clothes need to match.

This is the season that can carry saturation. Where other men look overwhelmed by a true red or a deep emerald, you look underdressed without some depth somewhere.

The Deep Winter palette

Hex codes included, because online shopping is where a palette earns its keep and product photography lies constantly about colour.

• Black Cherry#3A0E1E
• Cool Burgundy#5C1226
• Garnet#7A1230
• True Red#B01128
• Midnight Navy#0E2A4A
• Deep Teal#0C3A3E
• Deep Pine#14322B
• Emerald#10513E
• Deep Plum#4A1438
• True Black#111214
• Dark Charcoal#2A2D33
• Deep Cool Grey#4C525A
• Icy Blue Accent#B7D3E6
• Icy Pink Accent#EBC9D9

The full breakdown, including the neighbouring seasons, is on the season palette page.

Suits and tailoring

You can wear real black tailoring, which most men cannot. A black suit on a Deep Winter looks intentional rather than funereal, because your own contrast matches it.

Charcoal and midnight navy are the everyday workhorses. Go dark rather than mid: a mid-grey suit is the one that will look washed out on you, because it sits too close to nothing in particular. Depth is your friend.

Shirts

Crisp optic white, not cream. This is the inverse of the warm seasons, and it matters more than people expect. Cream and ecru go slightly muddy against cool deep colouring, while a true white sharpens everything.

Beyond white: cool light blue, deep cool grey, and black for evening. Icy blue and icy pink work as accent shirts precisely because they are pale and cool rather than warm pastels.

Ties and knitwear

This is where Deep Winter gets to do what no other season can: true red, garnet, black cherry and deep plum all work at full saturation. A true red tie against a white shirt and charcoal suit is a Deep Winter combination and it looks like nothing else.

Emerald and deep teal are the quieter options. Knitwear in black, charcoal, midnight navy or deep pine will carry most of the year.

Denim

Denim is easy here. Raw and rinse indigo, the darker the better, and black denim, which many men cannot wear but you can. The one to avoid is a light stonewash or anything with an orange cast to the fade.

Grey denim in a genuinely cool charcoal also works, which is unusual and worth knowing.

Outerwear

A black or midnight navy overcoat is the right first coat, and unlike most men you do not need to soften it. Charcoal is the third option.

Camel is the classic overcoat colour that will not serve you: it is warm and mid-depth, and it flattens the contrast that makes this palette work. If you want something lighter than black, go deep cool grey instead.

Hair and beard colour

Most Deep Winter men already have the hair the palette wants. If you colour it, stay cool and stay dark: blue-black, cool dark brown, or espresso. Warm chestnut and golden brown will pull your skin sallow.

Beards frequently come in warmer or redder than head hair, and here that genuinely is worth managing, because a ginger-cast beard sits oddly against a cool deep palette. A cool-toned beard dye a shade lighter than your hair looks more natural than matching exactly.

Going grey suits this season better than almost any other. Salt-and-pepper against black increases contrast, which is the direction your palette already runs.

Metals, watches and glasses

Silver, white gold, platinum and steel. A steel watch case on a black strap, dark or black-framed glasses, and black leather for belts and shoes.

Gold is the one to be careful with. Yellow gold is warm and it sits at odds with everything else here; if you want gold, white gold does the job without the temperature clash.

What to avoid

Warm earth tones are the trouble: camel, rust, mustard, terracotta, olive and warm brown all drain a Deep Winter face. So do muted, dusty shades, because this palette lives on clarity.

Beige is the single worst offender and it is everywhere in menswear, in chinos, in overcoats, in summer suiting. Substitute charcoal, cool grey or crisp white.

For the underlying reading, the skin tone analyzer explains what undertone, depth and contrast actually are.

Not sure where you land? take the free color season quiz: six questions, no photo needed.

FAQ