Outfit: Surprise Colour Combos

When I was in my late teens I was, unfortunately, a bit of a fashion victim. In my defense, aren’t we all at that age? I mean, we don’t know any better, do we? We are completely blinded as to what our own tastes are and what looks good on us, because we’re so obsessed with dressing the way everyone else is dressing! It also just so happens that my later teens coincided with the late 90’s/early 00’s so I was always at a disadvantage to be fair…. Anyway, this new found need in me to be considered ‘fashionable’ led me to many an ill advised trend, but most notably an obsession with matching. Not just matching my shoes to my handbag – I still do that and I’m completely unashamed about it, so there fashion rules!! No. I matched everything. I matched my shoes to my handbag to my vest top to my belt to my jewellery to my eyeliner. Yes, I said eyeliner! EVERYTHING had to be the same colour – which, incidentally, was always a lurid shade of turquoise!

These days, while I still favour the shoes-to-bag combo, I do like to try and be a little more creative with my colour palettes. I say try – I’m not always successful. I find it extremely difficult not to pair breton stripes with red, for example, which funnily enough is also how I feel about monochrome polka dots. A green dress just seems like it was made for gold shoes. And red and leopard print just seem like the obvious pairing 99% of the time. But I do try. Thankfully though, sometimes the effort is taken right out of your hands, which is how this unexpected outfit was born!

As you may know, at the start of the year I declared that I really needed to improve my casual outfit repertoire, so I’d been on the look out for some smart sweaters to wear once Winter kicked in. For some reason – despite previously feeling a little what’s the point? about 2-in-1 jumper/sleeve combos (not that I don’t think they look nice, I’m just a sucker for value so always tell myself to buy two things instead and layer them up!) – I decided I rather liked this one and decided to give it a try. I did wonder what on earth I would wear with it – Chartreuse is simply not a colour I own a lot of! I assumed I’d cop out with black, or possibly stick to the usual and pair it with those beautiful satin Zara shoes I’d also not long ago purchased. It was only once it arrived, though, that I realised quite how, um, different, the colours used in the print were. I’m not quite sure how I didn’t notice, because I have, you know, eyes, but that pretty floral print I was initially drawn to was actually a dark burgundy colour, which was not at all I colour I thought would go (again, don’t know how this escaped my attention because it’s basically the same print as this blouse which is also clearly burgundy, soooo….). Luckily though, burgundy IS a colour I have plenty of, and so finding accessories to match was no issue at all, and this I was all of a sudden creative with my colour choices without even trying! Go me!

And there you have it. Chartreuse and burgundy – the combo you never thought existed until now! And I’m a fan, who knew? I feel like I’m ready to try anything now – any more obscure pairings you’d care to recommend??

Love,

In this post: 2-in-1 Sweater, Oasis (Similar) – Ankle Boots, H&M (Similar) – Handbag, Primark (Similar) – Black Jeans, Primark (Similar)