A Winter Green Outfit with a Pop of Red with the Thrifty Six

I have recently been welcomed into a wonderful group of fashion and lifestyle bloggers that focuses on styling preloved clothing and accessories in themed monthly posts (third Monday of the month). I hope that this showcase of secondhand items and outfits provides some shopping and style inspiration for anyone who is interested in creating great looks in a way that is sustainable for our planet and our pocketbooks.

Today's topic is my choice of Wintergreen...which could refer to a particular shade of green or green in winter more generally (my topic, my rules?). While I love the various dark greens with a bit of blue that are popular wintergreen hues, I decided to feature my cap-sleeve black and dark olive floral/leaf print dress in a version that is winterized with layering (thrifted Alfani, $13.66, 8/2020, 10 wears, $1.37 cost per wear).

For today's outfit, I layered an open weave pullover sweater in an olive-friendly shade of sage green over the dress to create a faux skirt look (Loft final sale, $3.98, 7/2020, 4 wears, $1.00 CPW).

OOTD 12/5/24

I love print mixing a scarf and skirt so I selected a scarf with olive green and black plus a range of other gorgeous colors woven in: bright pink, orange, yellow, red-violet, and dark blue (thrifted, $3.59, 5/2020, 5 wears, $0.27 CPW). The interweaving of these various colors creates a wonderful plaid patchwork pattern with nice visual texture. I put elastic through a gold shank button to create an easy DIY scarf ring (this 1-minute video tutorial on YouTube gave me the idea). The scarf creates a nice color contrast with the sage green sweater and gives it a low-key Christmas vibe. If there's ever a time to wear red and green together, December is that time!

I like to match the colors in this dress with my tights and boots so I stick to olive and/or black with it. For today's look I doubled down on the green in keeping with the Wintergreen theme (olive boots from Kohls, $16.99, 11/2020, 24 wears, $0.71 CPW).

I have another chunky DIY memory wire bracelet with 6 loops of memory wire holding beads from 11/0 seed beads to 8mm beads in a color palette I picked to coordinate with the dress: green, black, white glass pearls for shine and contrast, and mixed metals (gold, silver, antique copper, antique bronze). I purposely cast my color net a bit wider in designing this bracelet, bringing in a range of warm green colors including but not limited to olive; this creates a "variegated" green look. I recommend this for two reasons: (1) it creates visual interest to have a variety of bead colors, shapes, textures, and sizes in the bracelet, and (2) a piece with many different shades of green more easily blends to coordinate with any particular shades of green you're wearing. Since I routinely wear this olive and black dress with other slightly different shades of warm green (like the sage green sweater), having a matching bracelet that shares that "many types of green" quality was an easy choice.

My bead soup earrings of the day were designed to match the scarf by pulling out what my eye usually sees as its three dominant colors: red, black, and olive. I added two types of rope-style metal spacer beads and ear wires in antique bronze.

Now let's review the Wintergreen outfits that my thrifty friends have styled...

The Thrifty Six:

• Emma of Style Splash

• Jane of Preloved-Vintage-Handmade

• Jodie of Jodie's Touch of Style

• Nancy of Nancy's Fashion Style

• Sally of Within a World of My Own [me]

• Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge

Emma of Style Splash

"For this month's challenge I chose my second hand Marks and Spencer coat that I bought on eBay a few years ago. I've teamed it with black palazzo jeans (also M&S), a geometric print top from Warehouse and chunky Converse from Vinted."

Jane of Preloved-Vintage-Handmade

"The T6 theme for December is ‘Wintergreen’; a beautiful shade of green, somewhere between teal, peacock and pine…

…it’s a rich jewel colour with a distinct festive feel, perfect for a special Christmas Day outfit!

I found this vision in velvet at a Kilo Sale way back in January; it was love at first sight and I knew it would be my Christmas Day dress…

Soft velvet radiates light, gold trims bring opulence and the exquisite neck piece looks like it’s part of the dress…

I can’t wait to step out on Christmas morning – I hope the day is as bright and fresh as this dress!"

Jodie of Jodie's Touch of Style

"I believe in the power of the color green and had the 3 of us from my crew show different concepts of how to wear it. I am using it as a pop of color in my monochromatic outfit. Everything except my eyeglasses and lace Halftee (under the sweater) is thrifted or preloved."

Nancy of Nancy's Fashion Style

"Aint this a colourful outfit for me! I love the pink jacket with the red

boots. And although I am totally not a fan of red and green together, too Christmassy, it works somehow in this look. And you all know how I love black but I never wear these pre loved trousers with black. Only with red, pink or yellow. So you could say these are my out of the box trousers. It even has some embroidery on the left pocket."

Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge

"I found this wintergreen duster style top with brown squiggles on a summertime thrifting adventure. I never had the chance to wear it before the cold weather arrived, but I was able to style this lightweight top for winter with some creative layering. I added preloved boots, necklace, scarf, and earrings in various shades of brown and green to create a cool color combination that really stands out in the snow." 

Next month's topic is Hats...and I truly am not sure whether I have a thrifted hat because I only wear them as a matter of function, not style. But I'll come up with something, even if I have to get a bit creative with it!

In the meantime, visit these lovely bloggers for the details of their thrifted Wintergreen outfits and more style inspiration:

• Emma of Style Splash

• Jane of Preloved-Vintage-Handmade

• Jodie of Jodie's Touch of Style

• Nancy of Nancy's Fashion Style

• Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge

Do you like wearing shades of green? Does "Wintergreen" evoke a particular shade of green to you? Do you ever mix red and green...in the Christmas season or otherwise? Do you like to add a pop of contrasting color to your outfits? What's your favorite way to do a pop of color?

Blogs I link up with are listed here.