How I Build an Outfit, Sheila Style

Okay, so some of you lovely people wanted to see how I build an outfit. We'll get to that. But first, here's the outfit!
I found this amazing top while thrift shopping with Elaine - it's Kitchen Orange, a brand I've liked for a while. I have a Kitchen Orange dress, you may recall. The top was only $12.50 - score!

I love the funky collar, the slightly flared sleeves and the stiff texture of it.

It's a wee bit snug in the boobular region, but I don't mind - as well as being a thick fabric, it also has some stretch to it.

This is the third wearing of the skirt (last seen here), ha, also with blue tights.

A close-up of the top half:

Yikes, bad lighting in the closet! Let's just move on.

The stuff:

Mmm...love those shoes. For a cheap pair of shoes that I bought over 2 years ago, these have stood me well.

The shiny stuff:

I have been wearing that ring to death, lately.

Top (Kitchen Orange "L-Bow", thrifted), skirt (Nygard), belt (Denver Hayes, consignment), tights (Hue), shoes (Le Chateau), earrings (gift from L), ring (Aldo Accessories).

But wait, you say! How the heck did you build that?

Here you go.

First, I keep all my new stuff in a special place in my closet. Whenever I buy something new or acquire an item, I put it in the same place so that I don't forget: a shelf on my closet. Here we have a silver headband, a brooch and a pair of weird plaid knee-highs:

There is also a leopard skirt, a camel Kitchen Orange top, and a khaki cami with copper sequins. I usually hang up all the clothing items and put them at the left side, near the door of my closet, but I'm low on hangers 'cause I need to clean out my closet, so the clothing items are laid across the tops of my long skirts and pants hangers.

I'm now looking at my new stuff...hmmm...which piece grabs me? I think the top - do any of my long skirts or pants look like they would go?

Ooh, those plaid pants leap out at me - I bet they'd look good with the Kitchen Orange top. Let's have a closer boo at those:

They're practially a neutral!

And camel's a neutral - these will go together, for sure. Let's try a belt - that top needs something in the middle to keep me from looking like a Kraft caramel:

SNOOZE.

Try another belt:

Oooh! Me likey! But those pants are blandifying up the place, I need some more colour with this before I fall asleep.

After another scope through the long skirts and pants, I turn to the short skirts:

Ah, sweet rainbow of happiness. Notice how I block my skirts by colour, starting on the left with cream, yellow (it's there, trust me, there are just too many skirts here right now, must clean out), orange, red, multi-coloured patterns, browns, greeens, denim, blue, grey, black/white pattern and black. This really helps me decide where I want to go with an outfit.

It also helps to hold the top against the skirts and see what leaps out at me:

I'm veering towards the darker side of the spectrum.

This skirt actually has camel/gold in its pattern:

Mmm, that's pretty together, but the style of the top (modern, clean lines, almost geometric) fights with the twining leaves and flowers of the skirt. Let's try something else.

Ooh, hello!

I like that! The gold embroidery on the skirt goes well with the camel, and the grey (being a cool neutral) contrasts nicely with the camel (a warm neutral), and keeps it from descending into a gooey caramel mess.

But I still need a belt!

Wow, I would not have tried that normally - I would have gone matchy. But I like it - let's go for it!

Okay, now I need some shoes to go with this! I pull out shoes that are in one of the colours in the outfit, usually, or that are neutral. Here's a neutral one:

I like them with the top, but they're not right with the outfit. A little too busy.

I could go matchy:

Nope, the leopard pattern is too much with the belt and the skirt's pattern. I think I need to go with a solid.

I like blue with this:

Yeeeeaaaaahhhh...I like them with all the colours. Theoretically, these would work...but I feel like I need something a little more funky. But I'm going to mentally file away these shoes/this skirt and these shoes/camel for a future outfit.

Now, I know I'll be wearing some sort of leg covering with this - maybe a coloured tight? What shoes would really pop off a coloured tight and not fight with the other colours in this?

How about these? Oh yeah, I like those. Those are good. We have our shoe.

Now, we need to deal with the tights situation. These are how I store my tights:

I roll 'em up losely around my hand then tuck the toes into the centre. It's great for storage and they don't turn into a mondo-tights-octopus in the drawer.

But I digress: what colour tights? I grabbed the grey, those blue-y ones and the brown lace fishnets and put them on the bed.

Then I check out my new tights that I haven't worn yet:

Hey, what's that bright blue pair? I grabbed those too. Of course I chose them!

Next up: accessories!

Because the top has a wide funnel neck, and long sleeves that flare out, I know I won't be doing a necklace or a bracelet. This narrows things down nicely. I can also eliminate a brooch, at least with this outfit, as most of mine are too foo-foo/girly.

I scope out my big earrings:

I love how the flash (my bedroom is dark) reveals cat hair stuck in the black velvet. Gads!

Then I check out my earring drawer of my jewelry box:

I pull out the ones that I think go best:

Then I go through my rings and pull out the ones I like.

This outfit can go silver or gold metals - or even a mix - but I think I prefer gold. The fou-fou ones get eliminated when I look at them next to the clothing pieces...and I ended up with my big gold hoops and the coil ring.

Edit: Oh, I guess I should add - that took me 20 minutes to put together. I don't try anything on, and my outfits get packed into my knapsack right away for my walk to work in the morning.

And that's it! I enjoy putting things together and trying new combinations! Hope you enjoyed this!