Pattern Mixing: Your Not-So-Basic Tropical and Windowpane

Pattern mixing again today! Some of you are a bit leery of doing this, but it's not as scary as it seems - really! 

You just mix a couple of patterns! No, there's a tiny bit more to it, which I will get to shortly, but that's the gist of it. Today, it's a tropical print and a windowpane plaid.

• Shirt - Scotch &Soda by Maison Scotch, vintage store, Vancouver; last worn here (2nd outfit) in April with odd black pants
• Trousers - Banana Republic, thrifted; first worn here in April with red circles
• Shoes - Wonders; last seen here in June for a chilled-out Saturday

This shirt is one of my favourite kinds of patterns: a graphic print. This one has a flamingo, a couple of carp-like fish, water lilies and some greenery - it's very tropical. It's trimmed with a sporty black and white stripe around the edge and the blush pink sleeves and back are printed with a micro-dot and star design in black.

All the colours lend themselves very well to mixing with more colour. Of course, you could wear plain black pants with this top, by why be boring?

Do you know AllWays in Fashion*? Michelle is an expert in fashion and style, and writes excellent posts about her history in the fashion industry (seriously, she worked for THE fashion magazines for 38 years!), and often opines on the state of fashion, including a fun post today, "Basics are Boring."
*As always, linking 'cause I love! I've been reading Michelle's blog for years.

I tend to agree! For me, every single item I wear has to be special - where someone else might wear plain grey trousers, I'll wear a windowpane trouser.

These are fully-lined and are a fine summer-weight wool. Yup, a sweater yesterday, and now wool pants today. What kind of bogus August is this?

Do you know all the plaids? This is a useful post that I found, here, that explains them all. Wouldn't want to mix up our plaids, would we?

"Just mix them together" is not very good advice for pattern-mixing if you've never done it before, is it? So, here's a couple of guidelines that might help if you're feeling adventurous:

• Make one of the prints a geometric pattern. This could be a plaid, stripes, polka dot. Here's another example of how I wore this top with a different, bolder plaid, and here's how I wore it with black-and-white (to match the neckline trim!) houndstooth trousers.
• Make the other a more organic pattern, like a floral, paisley or a graphic print. Examples here (3 patterns!), here (two geometric patterns, but one is semi-organic looking), here (graphic print plus oversized gingham). 
• Both prints should have at least one colour in common. In the above outfit, there's some grey in the pattern, but I could have also done pink, white, dark green, dark teal, bright orange. 
• Two colours in common really sing, like in this outfit (a floral/polka dot mix) where both the jacket and the skirt have red and pale yellow. 
• Don't be afraid to just TRY it. The worst that could happen is that you have a bad outfit day (we all have them). It happens! But if you never try, you'll never learn, grow and succeed!

Would you add anything to that? Do you have a trick that works for you?

The stuff:

 My love for these shoes is immense. Pink, shiny, white soles, wooden last, and very soft leather.

Intricate bling:

By picking out other, different colours in the shirt's pattern for the shoes and the accessories, it ties the whole look together.

• Silver/aventurine ring - consignment
• Crystal ring - Uffizi Gallery gift shop, Florence, Italy
• Earrings - vintage fair

Of course, you could just go with black and white, like Vizzini.

"I match everything."

Well, he does have a point!