When you don’t dream in Color wheel

Do you ever look at style/fashion bloggers, or see them on Pinterest, or a fashion ads, wherever, and wonder where/how they came up with the color combination they are wearing? I do. I’m often puzzled. Neon yellow with mint green? Really? That’s supposed to look good together?

Maybe I struggle a bit with this “not matchy” color concept because I am a child of the eighties where everything had to match—the shoes, the purse, the eye shadow, the lipstick—all the same EXACT color shade. It was obnoxious. Remember when we used to literally dye our prom shoes to exactly match the same color of our prom dress?

Now according to the fashion guru’s—and by this I mean Stacy and Clinton from What Not To Wear—the shoes don’t have to match the handbag, the belt definitely does not have to be in the same vicinity of matching; and IF you wear jewelry items that distinctly match each other, you are aging yourself! Oye! That is a lot of pressure, and confusion, for someone like me who may or may not get anxiety over seeing different shades of green next to each other, or blue, or pink, or…we’ll stop there.

I am aware that there are such things as complimentary colors, I’m just not aware of what precisely they are. I am aware that there is something called a color wheel. I just don’t have one tucked in my back pocket at all times, or anywhere for that matter. I don’t dream in color wheel. However, I am very aware of my surroundings, I am inspired easily, and I’m very good at copy-catting with my own twist.

So, when I buy an adorable new pair of pink pumps….

{JC Penny on sale $24}

And I wonder what I could wear with them…that’s not pink, black, or white (my natural instinct color choices)…and I continue to lay in bed on Sunday morning pondering what to wear, is when I turn to inspiration from my surroundings. A scarf, fabric patterns, my husband’s tie (usually not of the pink family), nature, scrapping paper, a colorful card, etc.

Today my color inspiration came from a thank you card my future-sister-in-law gave me that I was using as a bookmark on my bedside table.

So pretty, feminine, and delicate.  For those of you who are naturally artistic and can put these shades of pink with this shade of blue in your sleep, you may be saying, “well duh Amber.” 

I’m not artistic, so this blue shirt was not in my realm of consideration with these shoes until I saw it together on the card. It’s simple, but it’s pretty and refreshing, I think. 

And just to be sure I don’t age myself, heaven forbid, I picked pink toned jewelry to compliment, yet they did not exactly match each other.

This concludes my explanation of how I find the colors to combine in my outfit choices. My advice to you is to collect, take a photo, “pin”, or take a mental note of the things you see in your life that aesthetically please you, specifically things with interesting and complimentary color combinations, then use that to inspire creative and colorful outfits.