Test Pattern

As I mentioned in my very first blog post, I have days where I feel fat, old, ugly, disgusting, stupid, useless and ridiculous. But never frumpy. Saturday was kinda one of those days! Completely sleep deprived after bedding down at 4:30 am and having to wake up to make a 10:00 am appointment that my spouse and I *had* to keep, we somehow forgot to set the alarm- maybe it was the fattie we smoked at 3:45, but I woke up with a start at 9:35 and we had to throw on clothes and run out the door. After a night of standing on my feet deejaying at a smelly bar until 4:30 am I wasn't exactly feeling fresh as a daisy. I felt more like a stale, discarded fortune cookie lying on a slimy Chinatown sidewalk. No time for proper makeup or any hair style other than 'bed head', I turned to my closet for deliverance. I needed clothes that would wake me from my bleary-eyed state and express my mood of the day (which, despite my grogginess, was happy - I was going to spend the day with my honey). I decided instantly to MIX PATTERNS! It was a warm, rather sticky day, and I was in a hurry, so I threw on a dress. A black and white tiki-esque floral linen number - crisp and easy - that I scored for a pittance at K&G discount. Over that I layered a very light, pink and white seersucker jacket from one of my favorite local designers, Sohung Designs, the traditionally wasp-y fabric given a fresh treatment with an asymmetrical hem and inside-out pockets. My favorite large, very black sunglasses (Oakley Ravishing), Vivienne Westwood for Melissa flats and a Harajuku Lovers cut out cuties tote bag (both bag and shoes in the same blushy-pink color family as the stripes in the jacket, with their own prints going on). I threw some Rhotto eye drops, makeup, and a hairbrush into the bag, hoping I would have a chance to use them later, and out the door we ran. No jewelry today aside from my Bulgari corona engagement ring. We made it to where we were going on time and, thanks to my cute outfit, I was able to wake up a bit and really enjoy my day. 

Mixing patterns is huge right now, and the magazines all have stories on the 'rules' for doing it. For spring, you want to mix stripes and florals - large florals with small stripes, or small florals with large or graduated stripes. I favor Polynesian style florals and shun the Lily Pulitzer-type tiny prints, but I have some Liberty of London pieces that I love. Along with balancing the size of the prints (the stripes in my jacket and the textured print on my shoes were both small, the floral on the dress large and the print on my bag medium), a unifying color scheme will bring all the different prints together. Today mine was pink and white and black, but I really love kelly green and navy together. Neutrals like khaki and grey are always good for accessories and to generally pull everything together if you're afraid of looking like you got dressed in the dark. The fact that I had no time to think too much about my choices worked to my advantage today.

Pattern mixing is nothing new, of course. Pinstripes and tartan is a classic fall/winter look, and some of my earliest style efforts involved not only mixing patterns, but daytime clothes and sleep wear (nightgowns worn as dresses over pants in elementary school, my dad's plaid bathrobe worn as a trench coat over green bondage pants in high school).

It usually turns out that when a particular clothing item or look inspires me, it evokes memories of something I wore or saw being worn in my youth, which brings up more memories (not clothing-related) along with a comforting sense of continuity. 

On the weekends, when I usually stay local (Lower East Side/East Village), the amount of inspiring style on the street can be surprisingly disappointing. In fact, I usually encounter a plethora of BAD dressing. I try to keep an open mind about styles and trends, believing that even a style I hate (rompers, ew) has the potential to look good on SOMEBODY out there. But all too often what I see is looks that I rather like (sheer) done so BADLY that it drives me back into my apartment and sweet isolation. But I did see one woman last week who was sporting a very cute outfit with mixed prints and with great accessories. She was taking pictures of architectural details of buidings and rocking a very artistic look to go along with this activity- a slouchy sweater with graduated stripes in shades of orange, a multi-layered miniskirt with a light blue small floral print, a really hot bag that reminded me of the Gucci Race bag, and cute open toe booties similar to these. She was for sure the cutest girl I'd seen all day- and probably in all the days since then.

Check out these looks with mixed patterns for spring!!