In this warm weather footwear series, I am reviewing our choices when we select a shoe color for our outfits.
Previous posts in the series:
Today we'll continue with the matching bottom piece + shoes combination, finishing up my accent colors. Once again, let's take a look at how I've worn matching (or blending) accent color skirts/pants and shoes in some of my warm weather outfits of the day. Some of these outfits you've seen on my blog before; others are new to the blog. Here we go...
Pink
These flats are a nice soft light pink color, and I like the combination of the pointy toe and the large bow. Of course they have a very feminine vibe, but I do think the pointy toe helps keep them from looking like a little girl's shoe. They are an inexpensive Amazon shoe with zero support, but in terms of durability, they are holding up fine so far.
The color coordinates well with my light pink pants; the shoe is more muted than the saturated pastel pink of the pants, but they work nicely together. With my pale, pink-ish toned skin, this combination creates a unbroken leg line (hence my sense that the shoes work as a nude-to-me option). This isn't something I would purposely seek out, but I'll take it. The soft pink in Outfit #1 is only subtly related to the rest of the look; the scarf has a few bright pink flowers, which motivated me to wear pink on the bottom of the outfit. I like how the chambray blazer softens the harshness of the stark navy and white striped top. Outfit #2 uses Road Map Styling to pull the pink pants & shoes and the aqua cardigan from the colors in the floral top.
My knit skirt, in a color I call "dull watermelon pink," has a very soft appearance due to the combination of fabric, heather knit, and color. I actually don't gravitate as much to this skirt as I'd expected, but I am happy with it when I wear it...so that's a bit of a mystery. But it is an undeniably good match to the somewhat lighter but muted pink flats, and this makes these shoes a natural choice to finish off these outfits. Outfit #3 pulls pink and green from the shirt's floral print. In Outfit #4, the soft pink is a coordinating but not matching color to the print, which has a muted peach/coral color.
Red
These are the sisters to the black buckle flats I discussed in this post about matching neutral shoes and pants/skirts. They are a nice blend of classic yet interesting to look at.
I have paired these shoes with my solid red ankle pants (recently retired in favor of these newer red plaid pants) to create an all-red bottom half to offset either an accent color top as in Outfit #5 or neutral tops as in Outfits #6 and #7.
Teal
Here I have two pairs to show you: the top pair is yet another Payless ballet flat, worn exclusively in warm weather, and the bottom pair is a more recent smoking flat/loafer in suede that gets more wear in the cooler months. I had been wanting a pair of teal shoes I could wear in the cooler spring and fall seasons for some time, but it took me a while to find the right shoe at the right price; this pair was worth waiting for!
I happily combine the bright teal ballet flats with a range of teal colored bottoms, such as the dusky teal skirt in Outfit #8.
Outfit #9 has the same teal skirt, styled for the summer to fall transition period with a 3/4 sleeve sweatshirt-style top and a loose scarf. The ballet flats would have felt a bit too "high summer" for me with this outfit, but the smoking slippers were just right.
Yellow
My mustard ballet flats are another pair of shoes I've had for almost 10 years now! I know that 39 total wears over 9+ years is not a lot of wears per year, but (1) with those wears, I'm down to $0.36 cost per wear, which I have nothing to complain about; (2) the shoes are still going strong with lots of wear left in them, and I'm playing a long game; and (3) even though these shoes are not in high rotation, I continue to use them a few times each year to complete an outfit with yellow in it in a very satisfying way. Yellow isn't one of my most often worn colors, but I do have a few yellow pieces for summer, and I like how these ballet flats work in these outfits.
The mustard flats finish off outfits featuring my yellow ankle pants very nicely. I don't mind that the mustard yellow is darker than the light yellow of the pants because those small differences just add richness to a look (and we are used to the idea of shoes being darker than pants so I don't think it raises eyebrows). Speaking of expected darker vs. lighter parts of outfits, Outfit #10 was a bit of an experiment in layering a very light (mostly white) shirt as a topper over a darker tank top, which is the reverse of how people commonly do it. But I thought the outfit turned out great! Outfit #11 takes a popular outfit formula (inner column of color + cardigan) in a very colorful direction with a yellow column, teal/peacock cardigan, and a print scarf that contains both colors.
What is your favorite color of shoes for summer? Do your preferences change as fall approaches?
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