lips and fingertips, a little out of step

in the philadelphia museum of art there is a pair of women’s gloves from elsa schiaparelli’s winter collection of 1936 to 1937, in black suede and red snakeskin¹. the red is at the tips of the fingers, where nails would be. the metropolitan museum, describing a later homage by franco moschino, explains² that schiaparelli’s accessories were inspired by a 1935 man ray photograph of hands wearing painted gloves, and that her version set “red snakeskin fingernails” on black or white suede.

it is a joke, and a very good one, about how closely the eye connects red at the fingertips with red on the glove. it also answers, in its sly way, the question many people ask before going out in winter. should red lipstick match red accessories? not exactly, but it should share their undertone. a blue-based cherry lip sits happily with blue-based cherry gloves, an orange-based tomato lip with tomato gloves. what looks wrong is mixing undertones close together. matching exactly works, and so does a neutral lip, and those are the three choices worth knowing.

why we expect red lipstick to match red accessories

the habit of matching reds is not old, and it was partly a marketing invention. revlon, which began with nail enamel, introduced lipstick and promoted it with a “matching lips and fingertips campaign”, according to the company’s own history³, which dates it to 1939. its later fire and ice campaign, photographed by richard avedon⁴ with dorian leigh in a silver sequinned dress and a red cape, sold a single red for lips and nails together.

for a generation, a red mouth, red nails and red gloves were a set, often worn with black or navy. the idea has softened since, but it explains the instinct many people still have to coordinate. the question is when to follow it and when not to.

three ways to wear two reds

match exactly

same shade, same depth, same undertone. this is the mid-century approach, and it can be magnificent, a cherry lip with cherry gloves against a black coat, glossy and graphic. it works best when the rest of the outfit is very simple, in black, navy or camel, and when you want the look to read as fully deliberate. stop at three reds. a fourth, a red bag or red shoes, turns the effect into a costume.

match the undertone, not the shade

a slightly deeper or lighter lip from the same family. a cool berry-red lip with cool cherry gloves, a warm brick lip with tomato gloves. the result is harmony without the look of a set, and it is the most forgiving option for most people. the thing to watch is finish. a glossy lip, a high-shine leather and a matte nail can look uneven together, so let finishes relate to one another, all polished or all soft.

let the gloves be the only red

a balm, a nude close to your own lip colour or a soft rose, with a sheer or bare nail and red gloves. this is the purest version of the single-red idea and the most modern of the three. it is also the safest, because there is nothing for the red gloves to disagree with.

the one thing to avoid

the pairing that goes wrong is a cool, blue-red lip with a warm, orange-red glove, or the reverse. seen apart, both are lovely. seen together, with the hand near the face, they look like two attempts at the same colour that did not quite land.

the simplest test is to hold the lipstick bullet against the glove by a window. if one looks orange or pink next to the other, they belong to different families.

what about red nails?

nails and gloves rarely appear at the same moment, because when the gloves are on the nails are hidden. that makes nails the easiest red to combine. you see the gloves outdoors and the nails indoors, so they read as two separate moments in the day.

but the moment of taking a glove off is a small piece of theatre. you draw it off finger by finger, and the hand that emerges is suddenly the centre of attention, which is exactly the moment schiaparelli was playing with. an undertone mismatch is obvious then. if you wear red nails with red gloves, keep them in the same family. a deep red nail, cherry or burgundy, looks more polished beside leather than a bright coral. and the one combination worse than either alone is a chipped red nail emerging from a beautiful glove.

four looks that get it right

for the classic, a black coat, a black roll-neck, cherry gloves, a cherry lip and cherry nails. graphic, a little old hollywood, entirely intentional. for the modern, a grey coat, a grey knit, red gloves, balm on the lips and bare nails, clean and quietly confident. for a warmer version, a camel coat, a cream knit, tomato gloves and a brick lip, soft and autumnal. and for evening, a navy satin dress, a black coat, deep cherry gloves, a nude lip, and dark red nails revealed only when the gloves come off.

if you are not sure about a red lip on your own skin, choose the third approach and let the gloves carry the colour. they sit further from the face, so the undertone question matters less. wutong makes no red glove, but the same thinking applies to any coloured pair: decide whether the gloves are the only colour or part of a matched set, then commit.

if you would rather build that moment around another colour entirely, wutong’s deepest is plum, in its plum python-print suede gloves.