Thursday, September 2, 2010

Flower Power

I've been asked a couple of times where I get my ideas for colour combinations. Aside from having a mom who's an artist and growing up doing art all through school, there are a couple of ways I put together colours.

One way is to take a pattern in a clothing item I already have and pull colours out of it. The other is to copy something I see. The easiest thing for me is to look at nature, especially flowers:
This outfit is a bit of both. The shoes are green, yellow and purple, so duh, that's pretty simple. But I also have a life-long fondness for the flowers that were in the garden of the house I grew up in. I love pansies:Isn't that just gorgeous? You could do purple, white, cream, yellow, fuschia, black and brown - and they'll all go together, because there they are, all in one flower!

As soon as I put this lovely purple shirt next to the shoes, I looked around for some yellow in my wardrobe. I have a lot of pale yellow, but when I held this mustard yellow cami up to the vivid purple, they really popped together:
The softer olive helped tone it down. With flowers, all the greenery acts like a neutral. In an outfit, you don't really have to worry about the green as long as it's the "background" or neutral colour - I wouldn't have done bright green (too much), but I would have done a deeper olive or a forest green.

This iris is another flower that I loved when I was younger:

This is the second wear of my shirt (seen here), the second wear of this skirt (seen here) and also the second wear of these shoes (seen here). Not counting the jewelry, this outfit cost a total of $19.50 - everything was thrifted/consignment.

The stuff:
Those shoes are so fun.

I quite liked all the sparkly stuff:

I was very rattly with the charm bracelet today! Hee! That's a big ring, by the way.

Shirt (H&M, thrifted), cami (Smart Set), skirt (Club Monaco, consignment), shoes (Enzo Angiolini, thrifted), bracelet and necklace (Plum), earrings (vintage), ring (Guess).

10 comments:

  1. Fabulous! I love the flower-inspired color mixing, that's such a great way to think about it. I think I need to wear some colors tomorrow...

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  2. Absolutely gorgeous! I think the reason it really works is the tone and saturation of the colors.

    Mentioning your mom's art history - I really try to pull from my college art classes when trying to be more creative with my wardrobe.

    I love your idea of looking at flowers. That's a fabulous place to draw inspiration from.

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  3. Cute post. You do look like a beautiful blossom!

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  4. What a GREAT tip! Those shoes ARE amazing! And the jewelry looks like it was made 'specially for wearing with them.

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  5. That's an awesome combination... I particularly like the shoes and all of your accessories.
    I think it is very smart to look at nature for inspiration...

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  6. We can't do better than imitate the beauty of nature. Plants and animals have many inherent qualities worth admiring. Good choice to focus on them.

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  7. Purple and yellow are brilliant together! I love this combination but have never before thought about the connections to pansies or irises despite these being two of my favorite flowers. Thanks for that!

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  8. Thanks, Cynthia!

    Megan, thanks. I love colour anyway, so when I look at a combination, I think of what in nature uses that same mix.

    Thanks, Wendy!

    Rebecca, thank you. I love the shoes too.

    Lorena, thanks!

    shybiker, exactly! Thank you.

    Thanks, Kelly (and I'm not even a Vikings fan).

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  9. The shoes are awesome! I love how they tie together and somehow soften the beautiful bold shades of your two tops.

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  10. Thanks, Kari! I was pleased with how the colours came out.

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