Layering Necklaces with a Cowl Neck Top for the Thrifty Six: Necklines

I have been welcomed into a wonderful group of fashion and lifestyle bloggers that focuses on styling preloved clothing and accessories in themed monthly posts (third Monday of the month). I hope that this showcase of secondhand items and outfits provides some shopping and style inspiration for anyone who is interested in creating great looks in a way that is sustainable for our planet and our pocketbooks.

Today's topic is Necklines...and I immediately knew I wanted to experiment with a cowl neck top and layered necklaces in a winter/spring transition outfit. I dislike turtlenecks so cowl necks are my alternative for cooler weather. They are easy to wear with scarves, with the neckline either covered or left visible, but the extra fabric at the neck can make wearing necklaces more of a challenge.

I created my base outfit from two older thrifted pieces in my closet that I was surprised to discover I had never worn together before:

(1) Denim blue cowl neck top (thrifted, CJ Banks); 9/2019 - $5.99; 11 total wears - $0.54 CPW (cost per wear)

(2) Green-teal plaid pants (thrifted, Old Navy); 8/2020 - $14.76; 18 total wears - $0.82 CPW

In colder weather, I would layer over these pieces, but for this "hint of spring" day, I enjoyed the simplicity of a two-piece base outfit.

OOTD 3/10/26

The mustardy-yellow and black stripes in the pants lend themselves to pairing with an animal print shoe, which has the added benefit of bookending my hair. But to stick with the "thrifty" theme, I instead wore these fun and fabulous floral loafers: thrifted, Target; 4/2020 - $10.99; 17 total wears - $0.65 CPW. I would never have thought of putting these pieces together, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well the combination turned out! Even though the colors don't match, there is enough overlap in the blue and green color families (plus the shared black) for them to coordinate.

When wearing necklaces with a cowl neck top, I like all the necklaces to wrap around the neck and sit underneath the cowl section, as opposed to hanging over the cowl area. What's tricky is that a cowl neck has extra fabric around the neckline that makes your "neck" area much larger around than usual all the way around, not just in front but also around the sides and back. So I accept that for a necklace to lie in the front in a certain spot, it needs to be longer than usual to account for the extra fabric. At its regular length, the necklace will lie higher up.

With this layered necklace, I used 3 different techniques with my necklaces to deal with the cowl neck situation:

(1) Extending the necklace: I lengthened the shortest necklace (a DIY paper bead creation) by using a 3" extender chain in the back to make it longer so it would fall neatly below the cowl neck and not be crowded. I had made the necklace a bit longer to begin with (23") so adding the extender made it a total of 26". The necklace hits in the front more like a 22" necklace, so I think the cowl neck took up at least an additional 3-4" of length. One nice thing about a cowl neck is that the extra fabric covers the back/sides of the necklace so you can really add as much extra chain as you need (using extenders or adding a bracelet to the necklace) and it won't show (in case that matters to you; it doesn't have to matter!).

(2) Making fewer wraps: I usually wrap the 90" DIY seed bead wrap necklace three times for a mid-length look, but with the cowl neck, wrapping it twice yielded a mid-long look that fell just below the chest. Long wrap necklaces are nicely adjustable just by playing around with the number of wraps you make. Note that I kept my two wraps the same length, but you can also stagger them so one wrap is longer than the other.

(3) Wearing a long necklace shorter: My gold tassel necklace has a regular lobster claw clasp to which I could have added an extender to make it longer (e.g., if I wanted it to fall below the wrap necklace), but when I tried the necklace at its usual length, I thought that it looked just fine this way. (This necklace was a $20 Kohls retail purchase in 2014, but at 119 wears and a $0.17 CPW, this wardrobe champ is looking pretty thrifty at this point!)

My daily bracelet stack consists of a 7-strand memory wire bracelet that I made to coordinate with the plaid pants, drawing on all the colors in the plaid and a mix of metals for an eclectic but harmonious bracelet that is an easy go-to option with my pants. These bracelets are fun and easy to make, and it's a great way to use up odds and ends of beads/bead soup, especially those singleton beads you're not sure what to do with. (See this post for information about my bead organization and how I create bead mixes for making my memory wire bracelets.)

This outfit brought together 3 DIY jewelry pieces that were inspired by this pair of pants. I actually also have a paper bead bracelet set and 3 pairs of earrings inspired by these pants as well; put all together, they make a big "green-teal pants-inspired jewelry bundle." I find these kinds of non-matching-but-coordinated sets to be an easy way to finish off my outfits because I can pull pieces that go together well and supplement using solid pieces (like the gold tassel necklace) as desired.

Speaking of solid pieces, rather than pull one of the earrings from my green-teal plaid pants grouping, I finished off my look with a simple pair of gold hoops that were purchased new but very, very thriftily because they came in a Boss' Bead Bag 1 pound grab-bag of various beads, jewelry findings, etc. from Fire Mountain Gems (so you can measure the cost of each individual item in the bag in pennies). I'm sure they were intended to be a base for making wire-wrapped beaded earrings or something like that, but I have left them plain to serve a useful pair of basic gold hoops (which I didn't already own).

Now let's review the outfits with interesting necklines that my thrifty friends have styled...

The Thrifty Six:

• Emma of Style Splash

• Jane of Preloved-Vintage-Handmade

• Jodie of Jodie's Touch of Style

• Nancy of Nancy's Fashion Style

• Sally of Within a World of My Own [me]

• Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge

Emma of Style Splash

"I've seen collarless jackets are back on trend, and although it's not a style I would typically go for, I decided to challenge myself to see if I could make it work for me. I'd completely forgotten about this longline jacket that I bought in a charity shop a few years ago until I reorganised my coat rail and found it underneath another one. It was the colour that appealed to me more than the style. I've never worn it before - it still had the price tag on it! After trying various different combinations, I settled on a cream floral print top with a shirred neckline and pale green trousers for a spring colour palette."

Jane of Preloved-Vintage-Handmade

“‘Necklines’ is the T6 theme for March, a fantastic opportunity to shamelessly display the most attractive part of any woman’s body - the collarbones!

Regardless of your age, shape or size, it’s highly likely that you have great collarbones, I’m always more than happy to reveal mine to the world!

So here I am completely unabashed in a scarlet red wiggle dress, freezing cold but feeling like a Hollywood film star!”

Jodie of Jodie's Touch of Style

"I had my crew showcase the different options with crew neck tops because I feel like they get a bad wrap, haha. Anyway, my contribution was wearing a crew neck with a v-neck. Almost everything I'm wearing (besides the jewelry and glasses) is thrifted, and while the proportions are a bit wonky, I wanted it to look artsy and unique. In fact, I thrifted jeans that were too long and sewed them up so they are cuffed, like the trend. Now wait until you see my mom and Valerie's options..."

Nancy of Nancy's Fashion Style

“This top has a neckline I don't wear very often. I usually don't like high-necked tops. But this one is so cute. The print, of course. It's a bit of a Peter Pan collar. The top has buttons at the back and a trumpet sleeve. The top is pre-loved, from the brand I worked for.”

Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge

"I have had this blue thrifted dress for years but this is the first time I have worn it. I was drawn to the color and the unique embroidered neckline when I purchased it. The silhouette is not very flattering on me so I have struggled to style it. Enter this newly thrifted floral robe which completely hides the unflattering silhouette and allows the beautiful cobalt blue color and the fancy neckline to shine! It was the perfect piece to highlight for this thrifty theme."

And me...

“I don’t like turtlenecks, but cowlneck tops are a nice alternative. For this look, I wore a thrifted CJ Banks cowlneck top in a fabulously versatile denim blue color and comfortable tech fabric with a pair of thrifted plaid Old Navy pixie pants. I usually wear animal print shoes with these pants, but to stay true to the thrifted theme, I wore thrifted floral Target loafers instead, and I loved the combination!  (Finding fabulous new pairings from our existing closets is one of the best things about participating in style challenges.) I finished off the outfit with layered necklaces and a memory wire bracelet (all homemade except the tassel necklace) and a simple pair of gold hoop earrings that were part of a grab bag purchase.”

Next month's topic is Belt It...and I don't think I actually own a belt, so that's going to be interesting!

In the meantime, visit these lovely bloggers for the details of their thrifted "Necklines" outfits and more style inspiration:

• Emma of Style Splash

• Jane of Preloved-Vintage-Handmade

• Jodie of Jodie's Touch of Style

• Nancy of Nancy's Fashion Style

• Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge

Do you have certain necklines you prefer and/or avoid? Do your preferences depend on the season/whether? Do you like cowl neck tops? With necklaces and/or scarves? Do you have a favorite way of adjusting the lengths of your necklaces for different necklines/outfits?

Blogs I link up with are listed here.