How to Pick a Shoe Color Part 5b: Match Your Skirt/Pants (Accent Colors)
- sallyinstpaul
- Aug 14, 2023
- 4 min read
In this warm weather footwear series, I am reviewing our choices when we select a shoe color for our outfits.
Previous posts in the series:
Today we'll continue with the matching bottom piece + shoes combination, now turning to some accent colors! Extending the pants/skirt accent color down to your shoes has many of the same benefits we saw when discussing doing this in neutral tones, creates a cohesive look, and is a lot of fun.
Once again, let's take a look at how I've worn matching (or blending) accent color skirts/pants and shoes in some of my warm weather outfits of the day. Some of these outfits you've seen on my blog before; others are new to the blog, and I will say a bit about those.
Blue: Dark or Bright
I showed the top BP pair in my previous post in the navy category, and now it's appearing again as blue. These shoes are a useful dark blue that works with both navy and other blue colors, so I can use them to match/blend to a variety of blue tones. The lower pair, another of my flats from 2015: My Big Year of Payless Ballet Flats, is an unambiguously bright blue color that I really enjoy wearing.
This outfit is a good example of the "blending" rather than matching version of this color formula. The flats are clearly darker than the cobalt blue skirt, but it has much the same visual effect of matching. As a bonus, the darker blue shoes pick up the darker blue/navy color in the rainbow scarf.
My camera took a very dark photo for this OOTD but you can still get the gist of the bright blue pants + ballet flats combo here. The print tank top gave me the idea to combine the various bright blue, aqua, and mint colors in the outfit, but I think this would work with a solid top too as an analogous color scheme of Blue and Blue-Green.
Blue: Soft/Muted
The soft medium blue bow flats hit my <$1 cost per wear (CPW) goal last month, and they are past my 60 wears target for shoes. But other than some wear and tear on the inside, they are still in great shape, so I hope to continue wearing them for years yet. The snakeskin flats are one of my newest pairs of shoes and I love them. I'm not usually big on snakeskin prints, but I couldn't resist this fabulous silver/blue combo (that I call "metallic denim").
The blue flats are a shade between the bright blue of the pants and the greyed periwinkle blue of the leaves in the floral print, so they work well as a coordinating color in this outfit.
Burgundy
This is my only pair of thrifted shoes to share with you today, but they are a good one! I love the pointy toe, the delicate buckle detail, and the suede. The color matches/blends to both my burgundy pieces (warmer) and my wine pieces (cooler) so it's very useful to me.
This outfit and the one above are two variants on the same outfit formula: burgundy skirt + shoes, olive/sage/aloe cardigan, floral/plant print top, and layered necklaces. And yes, I really did wear them only 10 days apart. Sometimes when I hit upon a combination I really like, I do another version of it soon after. Burgundy/wine + olive/sage/aloe is an under-rated color combination, but I admit that I find it much easier to do when I have a print piece that includes both colors.
Green
For some years there, the only green shoes I owned were olive, so I enjoyed inexpensively adding a light apple green loafer and a bright green flat to my wardrobe in 2020.
My pants and loafers are obviously not the same color, but both are in the same warm green color family. I find that it can be easier to blend two different colors like this when they clearly differ in value (i.e., one is clearly lighter than the other). I absolutely loved this outfit from earlier this summer! This I always like wearing this saturated pastel striped linen jacket, and it is magnificent combined with the colorful fish scarf. Add in a set of DIY paper beads that I specifically made to coordinate with the jacket and you have a very Sally in St Paul outfit.
In this outfit, the green loafers blend to the "aloe vera" (that was Christopher & Banks' name for it) pants very easily as both are warm-tone mid-greens. I like the green pants + shoes with yellow top + scarf, brought together with a print shirt that includes both colors. Once again I am wearing a DIY paper bead bracelet set I made to coordinate the print item in my outfit. I have found the strategy of designing paper bead bracelet sets around print garments in my wardrobe very successful!
Today's rabbit thinks this whole "matching feet and legs color" concept is ludicrous! The kind of thing only a human would waste time thinking about. I asked her if her feet and legs were the same color but she refused to answer me, keeping her legs hidden underneath her the entire time. If I had to bet, though, I'd say the answer is yes!
Do you ever wear accent color shoes? If so, do you match or blend them to your skirt/pants/dress? What is your favorite color of accent shoes (on yourself or on others)?
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I love how you keep track of how many times you wear each pair of shoes so that you can calculate the true cost of them. I do it by year. I love all your colorful shoes! Where do you keep them all? I have a hard time finding space for the few that I have.
I really like your colourful shoes! I like to play matchy-matchy when I wear colourful shoes but the majority of my shoe collection is neutrals now! I'm more of a bag person than a shoe person, haha!
Thanks for joining the Weekday Wear Link up :)