3 Blue and Pink Summer Outfits with Dusky Rose Pants + DIY Paper Beads
In my last Style Imitating Art post based on this painting (improved with rabbit), I created a shades of blue outfit because I have been wearing a lot of blue and pink combinations this summer.
Today I am sharing three of these outfits that pair navy blue with the dusky rose pants that I first showed here. This shade of dark, moody rose pink is a new one to my wardrobe, so it's been a lot of fun pairing it with different colors and pieces in my closet. It's amazing how adding one simple solid garment in a new color opens up so many new outfit combinations with our existing pieces. This works with a top or cardigan/jacket/etc. as well as with pants, but I find that an accent color in pants or a skirt (or a dress) has a really big impact for me personally - more so than a top piece - though your mileage may vary, of course.
Outfit #1 pairs the rose pants with another new linen shirt from Lands End that I purchased over the winter (on sale for $10.49); this one has a fun mixed stripes and palm leaves print in the classic summer colors of navy and white. I couldn't resist the opportunity to wear my striped ballet flats for a double dose of stripes...an interesting way of wearing the matching top and shoes color formula. I could easily have skipped the accessories entirely and still had a very visually interesting outfit!
But since I'm me, I did add accessories! I wanted to do some more print mixing with a navy-based floral scarf, but between the heat and the busyness of this many prints together, I braided it and wore it as a fabric necklace layered with a thrifted colorful bead + chain necklace.
My daily bracelet stack (all DIY) was based on a new paper bead bracelet set in dark green, lime/sage, pink/mauve, navy, and silver. I'll talk more about this bracelet set in Outfit #2 below.
My second outfit includes the navy floral shirt worn as a topper layer with the rose pants, which is a combination I could easily have put together for the recent SIA challenge (instead of wearing this shirt with a slate blue skirt). I added some lightness and brightness to the look with the white tank top and the brighter pink seed beads in the DIY multi-strand necklace, which I layered with other necklaces in silver, white, and light pink.
My soft pink bow flats (which could pretty much pass as a nude-to-me option) were a nice low-contrast choice for shoes.
My daily bracelet stack is a subset of the bracelets in the first outfit, based on the same DIY paper bead bracelet set. If the top paper bead bracelet with the butterfly charm seems like a great match to my shirt, that's because it's made out of a catalog image of the shirt! The print is a bit obscured because I made them into bicone beads, but the colors are 100% on point.
The bottom paper bead bracelet was made from this advertisement in The Economist showing a sunset scene punctuated with bottled lightning. I thought the dark green, light lime green, and pink/mauve colors would look good for my color scheme while bringing a moodier counterpart to the more brightly colored butterfly charm bracelet. I was very happy with how the beads turned out, and the silver spacer beads in the bracelet shine nicely against the dark beads.
My third outfit is the darkest of the three...and perhaps is the closest to the moody color palette of the painting. I had been eager to wear the rose pants with this tropical leaf print top that has some dusty pink/rose/mauve colors in it, and I loved the combination. I considered adding an ivory/beige topper piece to lighten it up, but I was just really feeling the navy marl cardigan for this look, so I went with it. In this case, I actually liked the effect of the cardigan being somewhat shorter than the top, probably because it allows more of the leaf print to show while not standing out in a weird way due to the similar value (darkness) of the pieces.
Because the top is dark and has a busy print, I chose to layer simple bright silver chain necklaces and one strand of white faux pearls that can shine against the backdrop. Although I enjoy wearing beaded necklaces in my layered looks and creating crazy neck messes, I also like to wear a more minimalist version like this at times.
To further lighten the look, I wore some thrifted ivory captoe flats that coordinated well with the ivory/beige in the leaf print and the creamy white of the pearls.
My daily bracelet stack started with a different DIY paper bead bracelet set that I made for the navy floral shirt in Outfit #2; this one is in a navy/olive/pink/silver colorway that you've seen before. (For page to bead photos, see this post.) This time I supplemented the set with a stand-alone paper bead bracelet in olive and silver to which I added a cute turtle charm. I rounded out the stack with two pink quartz/silver bracelets, olive serpentine/silver bracelet, pink glass bracelet (all DIY), and a purchased navy/silver bracelet. So I guessed I counterbalanced the relative simplicity of my layered necklaces with a pretty big stack of bracelets! 8 bracelets in this size range of 5-6mm is about as many as I can wear.
Do you like to wear blue and pink together? What do you think of these darker, muted, "moody" shades? Have you added an item in a new-to-your-closet color lately?
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