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Monday, April 23, 2012

How Do I Wear This? - Tina's Unworn Pieces (part1)

Hey Yall!
When one of my favorite readers, Tina, came to me for help I realized that I have had SO many people ask the same question (including myself) "HOW DO I WEAR THIS?"  I thought it may help all of us in our fights with our own clothing.  I have split this into 3 posts so that I can share all three pieces and sample looks.

Tina, like so many of us, has pieces of clothing in her wardrobe that fit and that she loves but the items never come out of the closet, much less off the hangers. "How the heck to I wear this skirt? It's one of my favorites but I don't wear it because I don't know what to wear it with" she says as she shows me a picture of the first item.  This is common because of a couple reasons, we fall in love with an item and not a whole look, when we first make the purchase so we only see this piece as a separate piece of clothing from day one.  Also, once home, we get used to loving parts of the clothing item and then can't picture it with any other items we own because we become comfortable in the way we have paired our wardrobe for so long that we can't break out of the box in our thinking.

Here's my advice, ask and answer in detail what you love about the piece you can't figure out how to wear.  Practice with a friend or mentally practice this activity when you get stumped but literally describe the piece.

It would go something like this when I asked Tina for her description:  
Clothing Owner - "here is the picture." 
Asker - "but describe it to me, I think the picture may not show the right shades"
Clothing Owner - "it's a really soft, light purplish,pinkish, nude sheer skirt with metallic golden copper little flowers on the ruffles (insert sparkling smiling eyes at this point) and this is dark purple sequins on the layers that lay so nicely, it's just a beautiful skirt"

I could feel the love when she pointed out the areas of embellishment and the way she described the color of the skirt, well it was so magical.  You see it doesn't matter what color or words they use, what's important is where the owners eyes glow and what aspect they love most!  From there it's easy to accentuate the areas of the piece that lit up the owner like the star on top of the tree!!

Today's post focuses on the first piece described in the above scenario, and shown here all by it's lonesome.





Sample Outfit Using the Above Piece:


Why It Works:

     I used the purple sequin trim as the accent color and the gold metallic embellishment as the inspiration for the  texture/sheen accent for this look. I wanted to keep the look from being too evening/formal by pairing the skirt with the slightly scoop necked tee & large gold statement jewelry with touches of various tones of purple. The width & structure of the cuff bracelet adds a tone of strength to this light weight softer outfit, allowing the balance for a strong but approachable work look. 
    Since the nude skirt has a pink undertone, I added barely blush flats with metallic rose gold cap toes and a rose gold structured bag to balance the flirty femininity of the ruffled skirt. If she needs to run off to a quick industry meeting, put down the black or gray blazer and grab the structured jacket in a complimentary neutral color, like nude, with edging using texture of satin or metallics to emphasize the linear cut of this soft paletted piece. 
    Don't be afraid to use a little tone on tone texture, as in the sample blazer or bag, it won't visually compete with the pattern on the skirt as long as you keep similar proportions and the pattern is all one shade. carry the metallics through the makeup as well as the darker skin tone should feel free to play with more pigmented purples & roses for spring.


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