Cobalt blue and cream outfits pair a bright blue sweater, shirt, skirt or dress with cream trousers, knits and a trench. I treat it like blue and white porcelain, crisp without being harsh, and say why cream beats white.
Cobalt Blue and Cream Outfits to Try This Fall
Some of the most famous blue and white in the world was made in Jingdezhen, in southern China, during the Yuan dynasty in the 1300s. Potters painted cobalt, first brought in from Persia, onto white porcelain under a clear glaze, and the look has been copied for about seven hundred years, from Delft tiles to your grandmother's dinner plates.
Cobalt and cream is the clothing version. Cobalt is a strong, saturated blue, and cream is softer than bright white, so the contrast is crisp without being harsh. It looks especially good in fall, when cream wool and cobalt cashmere take over from the white linen of summer.
A quick test: try a cobalt sweater with cream trousers before you try it with white. Cream almost always looks warmer and a little more grown up.
Start With One Piece of Each
Start with one cobalt piece and one cream piece. Staud's Hudson sweater is cobalt cashmere, and Jil Sander's fringed scarf is the same bright blue in virgin wool. For cream, Bottega Veneta's Baby Veneta is a small woven Intrecciato bag in a soft white, and Jude's leather ankle boots are white on a low heel. The scarf alone will make a camel or gray coat feel new.
A Cobalt Sweater, Cream Trousers
This is the classic. The Frankie Shop's Gala turtleneck is a bright cobalt in merino and cashmere, and Auralee's silk wide-leg pants are ivory and soft, so they move when you walk. Gabriela Hearst's Peggy 50 pumps match the trousers in ivory leather, which makes the bottom half look like one long line. Cult Gaia's Eviana clutch is a marble-effect ivory box that looks like a little piece of pottery.
How to wear it: keep everything else cream or gold, so the cobalt is the only color.
A Cream Knit, a Cobalt Skirt
B Sides' sweater is ivory wool in a cable knit, and Skall's Dagny midi skirt is cobalt cotton poplin, crisp and full. The mix of a cozy knit and a crisp skirt is what makes it look fresh. Khaite's Valerie 55 ankle boots are cream leather with a sculpted heel, and Mikimoto's pearl and diamond earrings in white gold add one small, bright point by your face.
The Cobalt Dress, a Cream Trench
Rier's midi dress is cobalt wool fleece, soft and warm, and it works like a sweater and a dress at once. Toteme's oversized cotton trench in beige goes over the top, and the cream and blue look calm together. Maison Margiela's Tabi 60 boots in white leather have the split toe, which gives the outfit a little humor. Savette's Symmetry bag is white leather with a laser-cut pattern.
What I would skip: a cobalt bag or shoe as well. One big blue piece is enough.
A Cobalt Shirt Under Cream
Agolde's Sona shirt is cobalt cotton, and it looks great peeking out from under Max Mara's Palmizi jacket, a white wool bouclé with fringed edges. Haikure's Clara pants are white wide-leg corduroy, so the jacket and pants read as one cream column with a stripe of blue down the middle. Tod's Gommino loafers in sand suede keep it relaxed.
Choose Cream Over White
The difference between cobalt with white and cobalt with cream is small but real. White makes cobalt look sporty, like a team uniform. Cream makes it look warmer and better suited to fall wool and suede. If you only buy one piece, make it a cobalt knit, since it goes with every cream, beige and camel thing you already own. Then add the cream pieces slowly, a boot here, a coat there. If you want to keep browsing, I also put together Light Blue and Gray Outfits to Try This Fall and Red and Cream Outfits to Try This Fall.
