Today I will continue exploring ways to style a multi-color print shirt illustrated with my previous OOTD featuring this burgundy birds blouse.
Burgundy bird blouse - Loft - XXL - $25.00 - 2/2017
Total wears: 33
Cost per wear: $0.76
Additional wears to reach $1 CPW: n/a
Additional wears to reach $0.65 CPW: 6
In Part 1, I showed how to pair the blouse with all neutrals (dark and/or light) and how to create a modern twin set or inner column of color with a skirt/pants that match the background color of the print. I have two more color-selection ideas to discuss in today's post.
Match An Accent Color in the Print
The usual wardrobe-building advice centers on purchasing neutral pieces because they are considered the most versatile, easy to combine with other neutrals or with colors. I'm not about to argue that neutrals don't have their place in our closets. But multi-colored prints can be surprising workhorses because they offer so many different color combination options. They remain easy to style because you can simply select colors from the print (i.e., road map styling) to complete the outfit.
In the color palette above, I pulled out 7 colors that can be used in completing outfits with the blouse, three of which are accent colors.
This mint sweater vest is a great match to the soft green shade in the print, and the plum/wine + mint color combination is a good approximation of a complementary color scheme (if you call the plum/wine a version of Red-Violet and mint a version of Yellow-Green). This combination has a high degree of color contrast but due to the less-saturated nature of the colors, it's also easy on the eyes, I think.
The color formula of Print Top + Solid Neutral Bottom (from the print) + Solid Accent/Rainbow Color Topper (from the print) is a popular one for good reason. It de-emphasizes the lower half of the body and pulls focus to the portrait area, especially when adding a colorful statement piece like this mint flower necklace near the face.
But don't disregard the potential for flipping the formula on its head and wearing your accent/rainbow color on the bottom instead. The coral color of this pleated skirt really pops against the dark grey, and it creates an unexpected, high impact look. (While the end of March is full-on warm spring in many climates, in Minnesota we still have weeks of winter weather left, no matter what the calendar says. I think I often start ramping up the brighter elements of my outfits as I start looking forward to the arrival of spring temperatures.)
In this outfit, I pulled two colors from the print: orange for the shoes and soft green (interpreted as olive green) for the skirt. This is a rare skirt-without-tights outfit featuring this blouse, which due to its polyester content doesn't breathe enough for warm weather. But sometimes in the spring or fall there will be day that I can get this kind of compensatory dressing to work. Here I've moved to autumn on the top half while the bottom half remains in summer mode.
Mix Your Prints
No "how to wear" post for prints written by me could possibly overlook the fabulous potential a multi-color print shirt has for print mixing! Here's one of the easiest ways to do this with a collared shirt: layering it underneath a graphic sweater/sweatshirt. The red-violet color of the elephant motif is similar to the background color of the blouse's print, which creates visual harmony between them. The lime green in the elephant is not the same as the soft green in the blouse, but it's related. In any case, the blouse only peeks out here and there from beneath the sweater. A purple puffer vest gives the outfit the third dose of that color...
But the success of the combination is not dependent on the vest. The blouse and sweater look great together on their own (though note that I do have red-violet shoes bookending the color). In both of these outfits, I chose scarves that combine shades of purple with coral (which is another accent color in the blouse's print).
Match An Accent Color in the Print AND Mix Your Prints!
If you can't decide between these two styling approaches, no worries...they can easily be combined in a single outfit. At a distance, this black blazer with white polka dots looks like a solid (i.e., is a "false plain") so it's a very wearable way to do the print top + print topper combination. (If you're getting Halloween vibes from the orange + black, it's not an accident; this was a fall/Halloween work-ready outfit I shared in late October.)
Do you like wearing print tops? Do you ever create outfits around a print top? Is the "road map styling" technique a common one for you? Do you ever wear "false plain" items that look solid at a distance and only reveal their print/pattern close up?
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