What did I wear?. . .

Hello Readers,

I bet you're wondering what I chose to wear to my friend's wedding. . . It was a tough choice, but a few suggestions via facebook comments and my mom's expert advice I made my decision. . . 

With Jake and Kerry on their wedding day!

For my friends wedding I wore. . . (drumroll please)

The Orange Whirligig Dress!

I paired it with:

These vintage clip ons

This matching necklace

And these Tan Calvin Klein Snakeskin Pumps

Orange YOU Stylish: Oxidation

Hello Readers!

I hope this post finds you in good spirits! Today, I wanted to share a recent outfit I wore to work featuring the color orange. As you know, the color orange strikes my heart with fear and hesitation each time I consider wearing it.

Look at all of that orange! Quinn Fabray is much braver than I !

There is a skirt in my wardrobe, the Wallflower Skirt by the ever-brilliant Tracy Reese, that just happens to be orange. This skirt trumped my fear of orange, and in purchasing and wearing it I am becoming more bold in my wardrobe choices. So bold, in fact, that I wore the skirt to work! Here it is:

Who can resist this skirt?

In an earlier post, I mentioned that most of the color matching I wear is inspired by colors found together in nature. Oxidation, a naturally occurring chemical reaction, turns copper from an orange-y hue to various shades of bluish greens and aquas.

Example? The statue of liberty. Once it was a coppery hue, now it is a lovely mint shade.

This image, found on google, shows an approximate simulation of how Lady Liberty looked initially, before oxidation set in. 

My outfit, as you may have already gathered, is inspired by this very process. I wore cream, off-white, and grey as neutrals to balance my combination of orange and aqua (if neutrals were on a periodic table of colors, I think I would classify them as noble gases). What a smart combo!

The entire day I wore this outfit I received compliments from strangers, students, and even a colleague or two! What a way to feel great wearing orange!

Orange YOU glad you read my blog? 

Thanks for reading!

PS- next week I am running a giveaway- stay tuned!!!

Orange YOU Stylish: Spring Preview

Hello Readers,

I hope you all are having a wonderful week! I know that I did! The college I work for didn't have classes on Wednesday, which meant that I was able to take a little vacation, which meant spending time with family and celebrating the life of our late family mascot, Meeka, who passed away at the end of August.

On a lighter note. . . I was looking for orange clothing to add to my pinterest board "Orange You Stylish: Wearing Orange" and I noticed that orange clothing is hard to find! I did a bit of research on style.com, and I noticed that many 2012 Spring/Resort designer collections featured this elusive but bold color.

Would you like to see? Here is a handful of delightful examples:

This collection from DSquared2. . .

. . . Marc by Marc Jacobs. . .

. . . Rebecca Minkoff. . .

. . . Badgley Mischka. . . 

. .  Rachel Zoe:

And Donna Karan:

Orange YOU Stylish: Orange in Nature

Hello again Readers!

When it comes to mixing colors, I often look to nature for inspiration. Not always, but most of the time, what "goes" together in the natural world also "goes" together in fashion in decor. Let's think about that for a moment. . .

Delicate peachy oranges, sunset pinks, and dark greens

When we go to the ocean (my favorite place of inspiration) we find a variety of colors that combine and create portraits of that particular place. Normally, the portrait of an ocean is painted with shades of blue, green, grey, and tan. It isn't a surprise, then, that these colors coordinate easily with the clothing and artifacts we choose to wear in an outfit or the furniture and paints we choose to place in a room.

The color orange is a bit more difficult for me to place or understand because it isn't a color I see, or pay attention to at least, on a regular basis. Well. . . until I embarked on this project. Here are some examples:

An O'ahu sunset of orange, grey, violet-grey, and dark blue

Various shades of orange and brown in an array of fall leaves

A monarch butterfly- white, black, dark orange, light orange, and white.

The outcome of the oxidization process- orange, brown, mint green, aqua, turquoise, and green. For more details, see www.whydoes.org/why-does-copper-oxidize, where I found this photo

Later this week we will look at examples such as these to understand what to wear when sporting the color orange. Stay tuned!

*PS- for those of you on twitter, if you see something orange, or something that would look great with orange, please tweet about it! To share it with me, and to look at what others have found, include the hashtag #OrangeYOUStylish.

Orange YOU glad you read my blog?