History and High Heels: On Mixing Colors and Prints...

Don't look like this guy!!

Although, I have only been travelling for a few short days, I have spotted numerous offenders of the basic rules of combining colors and prints. I have several general rules to guide one's use of colors and prints:

1. Colors - stick to the same family if combining bright colors, but sometimes it is nicer to pair brights with neutrals. (Neutrals include black, grays, browns, and soft pastels.) Never use too much of one color, for it can often overwhelm the outfit and you.

2. Patterns - don't mix two different patterns, especially if they are loud. I do love a good floral or gingham print, but I would never mix the two together. This would be as disastrous as the Burr-Hamilton duel. (They both died as a direct result.)

Metallic jewelry, bags, or shoes are great items to bring together two different pieces. But one must be cautious about mixing too many colors, although the designers at JCrew likes to push this limit. I like to combine several fabrics together, such as leather, linen, denim, lace, silk, etc. They can form an interesting mix that looks really great.

Also, as a side-note, never, and I mean NEVER wear an all jean outfit. Frankly, you look ridiculous. I can sort of understand wearing a jean jacket or denim shirt with jeans, but please make sure they are drastically different colors! If you don't the end result can be that you look like you are wearing a jean jumpsuit, never attractive!

I loved the way the model below paired the brights and prints together with neutrals of different materials and metallics. You can see how I would recreate the outfit.