To me, the whole 'red tie on blue shirt' thing has been overdone and can be quite cliched.
Try a sky blue solid shirt with a patterned midnight blue woven tie.
Or conversely, a patterned blue shirt with a midnight blue tie.
Or try brown as a tie ground.
Tie patterns should be kept simple: stripes or dots in varying scale.
Shirt patterns should also be kept simple (white stripes on blue, blue stripes on white, gingaham or graph checks etc).
Ties should have more texture as a blazer and gray pants is a step down in formaity from a city suit. Good weaves include knits, grenadines and shantung silk.
Basically: you don't have to look like a christmas tree to be stylish. Varying the scale, shade, pattern and texture are more interesting ways to go about it.
Google the 'Armoury Lightbox' and 'Rugged Old Salt Tumblrs' and you'll see what I mean.
BTW: This is my opinion based on actually having 1) done the above hundreds of times, and 2) elicited favourable responses from those around me.
