Put together | Imamother

louche

Fri, Aug 28 2009, 11:00 am

You're asking too general a question as we have no idea what's in your wardrobe, but here are some general principles:

People usually look better if one article of clothing is a pattern that picks up the color of the rest of the outfit. For example, a blue skirt and sweater with a blue-and- yellow striped shirt looks better than a blue skirt, yellow shirt and green jacket. If you did want to wear the blue-yellow-green combo, you would pull it together with a blue-yellow-green scarf , belt or item of jewelry so the whole thing looks planned and not haphazard.

If wearing two garments of the same color, you look better if they match exactly. Any old black skirt with any old black top aren't as good because they're not exactly the same color and so don't look as if they belong together. If you're allowed to wear belts, then you can wear a contrasting belt between the not-quite-matching skirt and top and the difference will be less obvious. A vest in a contrasting color is another way to camouflage the mismatch.

One more way to get away with two items that don't match 100% is to combine a solid and a print. If the color in the print isn't precisely the same as the solid, it's not as noticeable as if they were both solids.

Clothes need to match in terms of weight and style as well. Never mind that September's Glamour magazine showed a young woman in a lacy beige dress and battered old canvas high-tops. The fotog said "this look wouldn't work on most women but it does on her." WRONG!!! She looked like a homeless person who happened to find a lace dress in a dustbin. If this was the effect she was aiming for (why would anyone dress like a homeless person on purpose?), then she succeeded, but if she wanted to look chic, she needs an image consultant.

The point of that ramble was that you can't just go by color. A cable-knit sweater (heavy, wintry, sporty) does not go well with a lace-and-satin skirt (light, summery, dressy) even if they are exactly the same color, and even worse if they're not. You do see young women in big cities wearing combat boots with floral gauze broomstick skirts, but they look dreadful. That may be the current "style", but it's still ugly. Furthermore, that look is "thrown-together," not "put-together."

Other accessories also have to be of similar "flavor". A dark bag that looks like an attache case doesn't work well with light-color, summery, feminine clothes, nor does a businesslike navy blue suit look right with a big straw tote.

If money is not an issue, you can get pulled-together outfits in most good departmetn stores that sell separates. they usually have mannequins dressed in coordinating outfits from each designer. If you shop early in the season, you can get skirts, blouses, sweaters, jackets and sometimes even scarves that mix-and-match perfectly. If you like catalog shopping, most catalogs like Coldwater Creek sell coordinating separates as well as matching accessories.

To help you match your clothes and accessories, take along swatches of fabric from the clothes you already own when you shop. You can usually find some hidden place like a neckline facing, pocket, hem or shirttail where you can cut off a small piece of fabric. (Use a fray-protector like Fray-chek or clear nail polish to seal the cut edges on the garment so they don't ravel. ) Then you can use these swatches to help you buy new things in the right colors.