30 Wears: Fish Charm Necklace

For today's 30 Wear post, I'm featuring a fun summer accessory that recently met my 30 wears + <$1 cost per wear (CPW) goals. As always, a thank you to Mica for inspiring me with her 30 Ways to Wear series.

This gold chain necklace with colorful fish charms is an item I purchased a few months into my current job, when I was in the process of building up a work wardrobe after having been in grad school for a few years. While the fish may be too whimsical for some people's personal style or workplace, it suited me well on both counts. I had hoped that being from Ann Taylor, it would have a substantial, solid quality feel about it, and it does. The orange, white, blue, and green accent colors makes it a versatile piece that works well with a lot of things in my closet.

Fish charm necklace - Ann Taylor - $34.75 - 7/2014

Total wears: 35

Cost per wear: $0.99

Additional wears to reach $1 CPW: n/a

Additional wears to reach $0.65 CPW: 19

I wore this outfit last week, which brought the CPW down to under a dollar. Here it was the dark blue accent in on the fish that was the connection to the palm tank and navy striped skirt. I also repeated the gold from the necklace in my shoes as another tie-in.

I'm not 100% sold on the palm + stripes print mix...I think there is so much more navy in the skirt than the tank that it feels a bit unbalanced. But with the white cardigan covering most of the palm print, it seems good enough, especially for a WFH outfit.

It amused me a bit to note that the shape of my braids is quite similar to the shape of the moderately heavy curb chain of the necklace.

For my daily bracelet stack, I repeated the dark blue, orange, and gold from the necklace with DIY paper tube beads, lapis lazuli beads, gold rectangular beads, round dull orange beads, and DIY paper bicone beads (all me-made bracelets except for the gold bracelet which is from Amazon).

Here are a dozen ways I've worn this fish charm necklace from my OOTD photo archives. These outfits offer a variety of color combinations and color formulas for your summer/early fall outfit inspiration.

#1: The orange + black color combo can look quite Halloween-y but I think this one manages to skirt the line. The white (as ivory), gold, and orange from the necklace is repeated in the captoe flats.

#2: Another outfit built around a pair of brightly colored ankle pants, this time worn with a "modern twin set" consisting of a chambray blazer and a blue peplum T in a similar shade. I miss these gold flats (BP brand from Nordstrom) that have been relegated to "rainy summer day commute to work" use after the stitching on the back started to come undone. (You will notice that I really like to wear this necklace with gold shoes.)

#3: I usually wear this rather bulky statement necklace by itself, but I occasionally jazz things up with a layered necklace look.

#4: Due to the way the clasp works, I have only a little bit of discretion in how long I wear this necklace, so while it's often above the neckline of my tops, that's not always the case. Luckily the gold chain and bright fish charms stand out well against this green-teal tank.

#5: The orange, green, and blue colors from the necklace appear in this navy pleated floral skirt (and the gold matches up with the yellow flowers too), so it's a good combination.

#6: The flowers in the print are not just solid blocks of color...instead they have a somewhat variegated quality that makes it easy to pair multiple versions of green, orange, blue, or yellow to the skirt because many different shades will blend in. I was happy to discover that my sandstone coral tank + cardigan twin set coordinated very well with the skirt.

#7: I wore the sandstone coral cardigan again, this time with a navy/dark wash denim inner column of color.

#8: This outfit has a lot going on, but it's not too overwhelming (to my eye) because the color palette is tight. This is a good example of a color formula I enjoy: a solid colored top + a scarf in the same color (a solid, an ombré/tie-dye, or a print with the color as the background).

#9: My favorite colorful striped linen jacket + silk fish print scarf combination was worn a bit differently this time, so I was able to wear the fish charm necklace with it. I love the bright pink shoes with this outfit!

#10: The fish charm necklace is less of an obvious fit to this outfit based on violet, dark grey, and white...but the zebra print scarf has a good chunk of orange in it, and I thought that was enough to make it work.

#11: I would normally finish this print mix combination with a long scarf to add a vertical element to the outfit, but this time I used a long gold tassel necklace instead and popped on the fish charm necklace for a simple layered necklace look.

#12: This shirt with the blue/green/orange/yellow print, like the pleated floral skirt above, is a great match to the colors of the necklace. I relied on the black outlining of the flowers on the shirt as the connection to support the choice of black capris. I repeated the black (and the gold from the necklace) in my shoe choice.

Do you have a favorite summer statement necklace? Or statement earrings? Or are your summers too warm to wear much jewelry?

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