Dark colours are more aggressive.  Look at McQ in Bullitt - ivy, but a dark version.

Women, as I have posted before, prefer the Prada-boy look, so darker colours fit in here and that maybe the case with your wife Sammy.

Likely because my formative years being in the 80s, I use to have quite a penchant for bright polo shirts and bright red shirts and jumpers being somewhat left wing at the time. Now I am much more interested keeping my palate more subdued, although there is nothing quite as beamingly powerful as a crisp white shirt.

In the early 2000s, Etro had a fantastic late Autumn colour scheme of William Blake oranges, browns and burnt tinges, which I flirted with for a time. Not sure what the message was, but I got it.

I suppose my colour scheme now is subdued Ivy intensity: basics of oxford cloth blue, white of course and ecru shirts for the winter and beige jackets for the summer, a splash of madras and old tweed. What does this say to people, colour wise? Hopefully not geography teacher, but the message to most women is that of someone dressing like their grandad I suspect. A combination of colour, cut and texture.

I think ultimately, analysing colour in isolation is not necessary the defining part of the code. Thaw as ventured far into colour, perhaps he can enlighten us somewhat?

Surely, cerise is a masculine colour but powder pink is - er - not?