Cufflinks have been back in the spotlight in recent years, with collections in materials and shapes like never before. In stainless steel, silk knots or even gold, cufflinks come in several designs to match all your outfits and accessories.
How do you match your cufflinks with your other men's accessories? It all depends on the size, shape and colour of the accessories you want to wear with a pair of cufflinks. Here are a few style tips to help you choose.
Accessories that can be worn with cufflinks
Men's accessories help elevate a shirt or suit for evenings out or ceremonies. That said, they should be chosen with care, sticking to just a few pieces to avoid overloading your outfit.
Among the accessories that pair well with a set of cufflinks, you can choose:
- a tie or a bow tie,
- a watch,
- one or more rings.
The tie or bow tie is essential for dressing up a shirt collar. It's an expected accessory for ceremonies such as a wedding, or for receptions, galas and the like. For a chic outfit, a pair of cufflinks will also be expected on your wrists if you're wearing an elegant tie or bow tie.
The watch is first and foremost a useful, everyday accessory. But for special occasions, the finest men's watch designs also become genuine jewellery worn on the wrist. Your watch should therefore be coordinated with your cufflinks, since both accessories will be adorning your wrists at the same time.
A wedding band, a ring or a signet ring are also essential pieces of jewellery for evenings out and ceremonies. Generally made of metal or a metal alloy, this jewellery pairs easily with many cufflink designs.
Coordinating materials and colours
For an outfit that's polished down to the last detail, focus on harmony of material and colour across your various accessories.
If you have a lovely collection of stainless steel, silver, gold or other metal-alloy cufflinks, try, wherever possible, to wear a watch or rings made of the same metal.
Your wedding band is the exception to this rule, as it's a piece of jewellery in its own right, which can be a different metal from your cufflinks or watch. If your wedding band is gold, don't hold back from wearing steel or silver cufflinks all the same.
With a watch on a leather strap, you can wear various metal-alloy cufflink designs. If you go for coloured cufflinks, try to match their colour to the tone of your watch strap.
Likewise, wearing a coloured tie or bow tie can be a great opportunity to choose that same colour for your cufflinks. Repeating the same colour across your collar accessory and your cuffs conveys elegance and a polished style. For formal receptions, you can dare a touch of colour on your accessories, but avoid wearing several different colours at once, which risks undermining the chic feel of your outfit.
Natural materials are highly sought-after in men's accessories. A wooden bow tie or watch is no longer seen as an extravagance, but rather as a trendy accessory to wear on any occasion. You can extend this taste for natural materials to your cufflinks too, favouring mother-of-pearl or stone designs.
Playing with contrast
Colour harmony is a style trick that guarantees an elegant, faux-pas-free look for menswear. That said, some tastefully controlled contrasts in colour and material can bring a lot of character to your outfit.
Material contrasts are the easiest to understand and remember. Ideally, if you choose accessories in different metal alloys for your outfit, aim to mix materials consistently between your collar and your cuffs.
Silver tie clips can be worn with a pair of gold cufflinks, and vice versa. You can also mix materials between your rings and your watch. Some pairings work better than others, such as:
- gold and bronze,
- silver and brushed steel.
As for colour contrasts, the choice is wider, so there's more risk of creating an unfortunate combination. For a birthday or a casual party with no strict dress code, you can wear a variety of more or less matching colours across your tie, bow tie or cufflinks.
However, when a chic dress code is called for, it's best to choose your accessories in so-called warm or cool colours. Warm colours include shades of:
- red,
- orange,
- yellow,
- etc.
Cool colours will lean more towards:
- blue,
- green,
- grey,
- etc.
Coloured accessories are generally ties or bow ties. Cufflinks can also carry a touch of colour, or be fully coloured with silk-knot designs. So you can play with warm or cool colour contrasts alongside shades of black or white.
Choosing the right cufflink shape to match your accessories
Cufflink designs come in a range of shapes and sizes. To coordinate your accessories as well as possible, take the shape and size of each one into account.
For an elegant, understated outfit, go for slim accessories. Slim ties and bow ties pair perfectly with a small, square or round pair of cufflinks. Silk-knot cufflinks are also a great choice if you want a discreet touch of colour on your wrists.
If you're not wearing a bracelet or watch, you can opt for a larger cufflink design. The idea is not to overload your wrists with accessories, but to showcase the few pieces of jewellery you do wear.
With a watch on a wide strap, favour slim cufflinks with a fastening system that won't risk catching on your watch strap. If you own several watches and cufflink designs, you can also match the shape of your watch dial to that of your cufflinks. A round watch dial will pair better with a round pair of cufflinks, and the same goes for a square watch dial with square cufflinks.
Plenty of accessories can therefore be paired with your cufflinks. Ties or bow ties, along with watches and men's jewellery, are essential companions for your cufflinks. Once you've applied the concept of colour and material harmony, you can easily create a range of pairings for an original, personalised outfit to suit your mood.
We also recommend these other pages:
- Matching your cufflinks with your shirt
- Matching your cufflinks with your bow tie
- Matching your cufflinks with your tie
- Wearing original cufflinks
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