How to Create an Outfit Starting with a Print for the Good Buy Book: Rainy Days

The April theme for the Good Buy Book was Rainy Days as shared in Shelbee's post and Nancy's post. With spring well underway in Minnesota, bringing rainy days instead of snowy ones (fingers crossed the snow is done for the season!), I enjoyed styling an outfit that I could easily turn into a Rainy Days look with the addition of some seasonal rain gear.

I created this outfit starting with the tiered navy knit skirt featuring a sweet ditsy floral print. As part of my outfit planning process, I identify high priority wear pieces for each season based on current cost per wear (CPW) of the items (explained in detail in this post). Two types of item frequently rise to the top of the high priority list: (1) new/new-ish items that I just haven't had an opportunity to wear as many times yet and (2) print items. It's not that I don't like wearing print items - quite the contrary! Nor do I shy away from mixing prints. But since it's much easier to "fill in" an outfit with solid pieces, especially neutral ones, my solid pieces tend to be worn more often and thus their CPW goes down faster. So it's not at all unusual for me to have a high priority wear print piece be the first thing I select when putting an outfit together. And I don't mind that at all because if you're going to wear a print garment in an outfit, picking that item first makes creating an outfit much easier.

OOTD: 4/9/25

There are a few outfit creation techniques I use frequently when I start with a print piece:

(1) Road Map Styling from Bridgette Raes, which involves pulling colors from a print and using those colors for the other pieces of your outfit;

(2) The Color Recipe from Jodie Filogomo, which gives options for wearing a neutral from the print or a color from the print (like Road Map Styling) but also a neutral not in the print, a color not in the print, and/or a print mix;

(3) Color Formulas as named by yours truly (but commonly discussed by sites like The Vivienne Files and Nancy Nix-Rice), which indicate what particular pieces in an outfit are the same or different colors, such as the inner column, modern twin set, etc.;

(4) Colors in the Span from yours truly, which provides some guidance for selecting colors (rainbow colors/accents or neutrals) that are not in the print but that are related to the print.

In an unusual choice for me, I actually went the "color not in the print" route to select this minty blue lace-front T to pair with my skirt. I used my "in the span" method to decide that if my skirt has a minty green in the print and a navy blue background, I could mix minty green + navy blue to get minty blue. I picked "a neutral in the print" when adding a dark blue wash denim jacket that matched the background color of the skirt, creating a print variant on the "outer column/suit" color formula. I then added a striped scarf and striped ballet flats for a three-way print mix with the floral skirt.

You can see that the scarf's color palette is very closely related to that of the skirt, with a navy background and a pastel print; in fact, the minty blue color of the top is also in the scarf's stripes, which further brings those pieces together into a harmonious, intentional combination. While Jodie often uses the "color not in the print" to introduce a pop of additional color to her look, I often look for ways to integrate the new color into my palette. Either way works!

The navy and white of my striped ballet flats repeat the two neutral colors of the skirt, and to my eye, the brown edging on the shoes relates well to the orange flowers in the skirt's print. Sometimes brown can feel a lot like a very dark orange to me for some reason. Do you ever see it that way? In any case, it's a tiny touch of a neutral color so it's fine.

I made this beaded memory wire bracelet specifically to coordinate with the floral print skirt I'm wearing, using the colors from the skirt and a mix of metals (gold, silver, dull bronze, copper/bronze) using beads ranging from 11/0 seed beads to 10mm beads from my custom monochromatic bead color mixes supplemented by an additional multi-color seed bead mix (these are the clear/lined seed beads). Making these bracelets is extraordinarily relaxing because it's a bit of an "anything goes" where you don't have to design or execute any specific bead pattern. I like making them with a mix of metal colors so they will coordinate with other jewelry easily.

I also made these simple bead soup + charm earrings to coordinate with my skirt, choosing navy and mint/teal beads and white/gold enamel flower charms that match the motif in the skirt nicely.

Now for the Rainy Days part of this outfit! I have this thrifted London Fog trench coat in navy with white polka dots that, along with a long beige trench coat I bought at retail, has been my go-to "warm spring" coat for several years. (I also have a light blue wool coat that is my "cold spring" coat for the earlier part of the season.) Since I wear a lot of navy, especially in the spring, this coat works very well in my wardrobe, but I don't balk when I want to wear it over black clothing.

The trench coat is a fun print mix with my rain boots, also navy and white, also from London Fog. (I bought these using Kohls Cash so they were not an out-of-pocket expense.) They are great for rain but also for the slushy snow that we sometimes have late in the winter season.

Although the saying is "April showers bring May flowers," we don't always experience it that way in Minnesota. Very often, snow continues throughout April into early May...though this year has been an exception so far (knock wood) with a relatively warm, rainy April. Some wildflowers will start blooming in May, particularly in the southern part of the state, but real wildflower season doesn't start until June.

High Bridge in a Hail Storm - St Paul, Minnesota - 5/19/22

White Flowers at Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden - Minneapolis, Minnesota - June 2015

Google Images is pretty clear that these flowers are some kind of fleabane, perhaps daisy fleabane or prairie fleabane. The daisy fleabane option amused me because my level of flower identification is such that when I see a white flower with a yellow center, the only guess I have is daisy! In any case, whatever specific species this fleabane is, it is in the aster family with daisies, so in a very loose sense, "daisy" is not a completely wrong answer. I do like the feathery petals on these flowers, which are clearly different from the daisies I've seen.

Do you like to create an outfit around a single piece? Do you ever start your outfits by selecting a print piece? Do you have a tendency to pick a particular type of thing first - like a top, pants, jacket, shoes, etc.? Do you have a preference for a very tight color palette versus adding a pop of a different color? Does "April showers bring May flowers" hold true where you live? Do you have any fun/whimsical rain gear for spring? (I forgot to show my umbrella, but it looks like a dragonfly Tiffany lamp, basically like this umbrella - isn't that gorgeous?? I've had it for decades, long pre-dating my navy coat and boots.)

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