Black and white is the easiest color pairing in your closet.
It’s also weirdly easy to get a little bit wrong, because two colors that strong will fight each other if you let them.
The fix is almost always the same: let one of them lead.
Below are four ways to wear the pair, from a striped shirt to a checkerboard hoodie to a pinstripe blazer, and at the end, a bit of real science that says the stripe rule you grew up with is backwards.
Let One Color Lead
Start with the most classic version, a black and white striped shirt.
This one’s oversized, button-front, and slipping off one shoulder, with black pants underneath.
See how the black pants tip the balance?
The stripes are roughly half black and half white, so on their own they’re a tie.
Put solid black on the bottom and black wins, and the whole outfit suddenly looks deliberate instead of busy.
White pants would’ve done the same thing in the other direction.
What I’d avoid is a 50/50 stripe with a 50/50 everything else, like a black and white bag and black and white sneakers, because then nothing leads and your eye just bounces around.
The off-the-shoulder slouch is optional, honestly.
Buttoned up and tucked into the same black pants, it’s an office outfit.
With a shirt this roomy, I’d tuck only the front 2 or 3 inches, so the fabric still hangs loose at the back and sides.
Black tailored trousers are on my wardrobe basics list for exactly this reason, since they turn almost any loud top into something you can wear to work.
If you want more ideas built around one strong neutral, my all-black outfits are pretty much this idea with the white dialed down to zero.
Checkerboard Needs a Neutral Partner
Checkerboard is the loudest black and white pattern there is, so it needs company that’s calm.
Here it’s a cropped checkerboard hoodie, hood up, over khaki cargo pants with a drawstring waist and big side pockets.
That khaki is the clever part.
A third color that’s soft and neutral takes the edge off the check, and it keeps the outfit feeling relaxed rather than like a costume.
Black pants would work, too, but they’d make the top look even louder.
And a second black and white piece (a striped bag, checkered shoes) would be too much pattern for one body.
The crop matters as well.
Because the hoodie ends right at the waistband, you can see where the top stops and the pants start, and on a pattern this bold, that clean break keeps it from swallowing you.
So if you’re buying a cropped check, look for one that ends within 1 inch of where your pants sit.
Denim is the other easy partner for check — especially a mid-blue wash.
Pinstripes Are the Quiet Version
If stripes and checks feel like a lot, pinstripes are the black and white you can wear to a meeting.
This black blazer has pale stripes about as thin as a thread running top to bottom, with a white top under it and black trousers.
From across a room, it reads as a solid dark jacket.
Up close, you see the stripes, and that little surprise is the whole charm.
I like it best exactly like this, with the white only showing at the neckline, so black is clearly in charge.
Even the black scrunchie on her wrist stays inside the two colors (a tiny detail, but I love it).
One thing to check before you buy: the stripes should line up where the sleeve meets the shoulder seam, because a stripe that jogs there is the first thing anyone notices.
A pinstripe blazer works over jeans, too, and my blazer and jeans combinations post has the ones I’d copy.
Horizontal Stripes Are Not Your Enemy
Okay, the science bit.
You’ve probably been told horizontal stripes make you look wider.
In 2011, two psychologists at the University of York, Peter Thompson and Kyriaki Mikellidou, actually tested it.
Turns out it’s the opposite.
A square filled with horizontal lines looks taller and narrower than the same square filled with vertical lines.
In their tests, a rectangle of horizontal stripes had to be made 4.5 percent wider before it looked as wide as a square of vertical stripes, and the effect held up on drawings of a dressed woman and on a real mannequin.
The height test went the same way, at 7.1 percent.
So wear the horizontal stripes.
This cropped top has thin black and cream stripes, a little ruffle at the cuffs, and it’s worn with dark high-waisted jeans.
What really shapes this outfit isn’t the stripe direction anyway.
It’s that the top is cropped and the jeans sit high, so the waist shows.
If you’d rather not show skin, pick a crop that meets the waistband or overlaps it by 1 or 2 inches, and you get the same shape with no midriff.
And thin stripes like these are also the easiest black and white to mix with color later, since a red bag or a camel coat looks good on top of them.
