When I was about sixteen or so, I fell in love with the color black. I think there were a few different reasons for this. I was in the pit band for my high school's annual musicals for all four years of high school, as well as Jazz Band president from sophomore year onward, and the uniform for all of these performances was head-to-toe black. Dressing like that on non-performance days reminded me of something I really enjoyed. I was also super into the Cure at that point, and sort of a metalhead/punk to boot. Oh, and I had a seriously major beef with authority.
Anyway, my love affair with the absence of color relaxed a tad in college, and I got a little more comfortable wearing color after I moved to LA. In college, I'd wear neon pink with my black pants, skirts, and tops, and as a grad student, I discovered that teal and subtle prints were actually my friends. As recently as five years ago, though, my closet still basically looked the same whether or not the lights were on. Black dresses were my go-to outfit, and even when I wore a more colorful skirt, I'd generally default to a black top. The colors I preferred were saturated jewel tones, in smallish doses. In fact, I distinctly remember going shopping in Vegas in March 2015 with one of my best friends, who kept making fun of how I continually gravitated to the monochromatic clothing. At that point, I guess I finally realized I was getting a little too predictable!
Oh, how the times have changed. These days, I want my clothes to be fun! I still love a head-to-toe black outfit from time to time (obviously!), but reading so many awesome blogs and getting into Instagram has reminded me how much fun it is to dress expressively. There's so much one can convey through clothes, and I'm much more excited about it than I have been for a long time. I'm a loud, excitable person, and I want to wear things that turn my enthusiasm up to 11! I also think that moving to a place where the sun doesn't shine 355 days out of the year has really helped to solidify this rediscovery of color.
So here's my outfit roundup for the month of February. Every day for the entire month, I had color in my outfit. Most days, it was quite a lot of color; one day, it was just my beloved BB-8 and seriously red lipstick, but the color was there nonetheless!
The month started off with a bunch of fun patterned skirts, but what made me consciously decide to go for a month of colorful outfits was my #7ShadesofRed week. Those were some of my absolute favorite outfits of the entire winter! After that, it actually wasn't too hard to wear colorful outfits for the next fifteen days. My least colorful days both involved black-and-white striped dresses, which is a perennial wardrobe favorite for me. In this case, though, I chose to wear them because we were going to have big meals on both of those days, and both dresses are cute 'stuffing your face' dresses (e.g. made of something with plenty of stretch and not much structure). In both cases, though, I accessorized with pops of color, and most importantly, ate enormous amounts in comfort.
Here are some of my absolute favorite looks from February:
Bernie Dexter Romance in Red Toile, featured in this post
I haven't blogged this dress yet, but my Pinup Girl Clothing Birdie in Baton Rouge Floral was my entry for the #headtotoePUG contest on Instagram, and I'm head over heels for this dress!
I reviewed this skirt on the blog (spoiler alert: LOVE), but what really makes me excited about this outfit is the way the skirt goes with this Forever 21 top that I've had since college.
The filename of this photo is "chuffed as chips." BECAUSE I WAS. I wrote about this outfit here, and I'm posting it again because I loved it that much. This photo totally encapsulates my style growth.
My last February favorite comes from the last day of February itself! This skirt has always reminded me of ice cream, even though most ice cream isn't blue, lavender, or green, and I just figured out why: it's sprinkles-colored!
For me, these outfits were colorful enough to make up for the grey skies (and grey old snow!) of Feburary 2016. I really enjoyed figuring out cheery, bright outfits, and think that fun colors are likely to be an even more prominent feature of my personal style going forward!
I gravitate towards the black clothes as well....it is what it is lol.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it was because I was in colorguard for many years of my life and if our costumes weren't ready, we'd perform in our "all blacks" so I know exactly what you meant.
We are kindred spirits!!
Yes! You looked so lovely in your February favorites dress! Black is such a great color on you. I miss performing so much -- do you ever miss your colorguard days?
DeleteI can't help that black goes with everything! :p
DeleteI miss performing too...but my body is very thankful lol....and so are my Saturdays!
I think they way you styled the mermaid skirt is my fave! I loved reading about your clothing history. We probably would have been friends in high school. I was into metal, played clarinet in a few school sanctioned bands...but I actually curled my blonde hair daily and wore a fuck ton of pink, haha. Goth on the inside, fooling the world on the outside I suppose. But I think we woulda clicked!
ReplyDeleteYay for undercover metal goths! I… was not at all undercover, hehe. My best friend in high school was a super cheerful person. Her nickname was Einstein (well, Big Al, but referring to Einstein). Mine was Satan, hehe. So yeah, I think we totally would've gotten along! Clarinet players must stick together, after all!!
DeleteI love the shirt that I wore with the mermaid skirt so much that I barely wear it, lol. I just don't ever want it to wear out! But I'm trying to get over that and enjoy it while I have it...