How to Wear Maroon, Olive, and Gold for Spring/Fall + DIY Jewelry

Today I am continuing to catch up in sharing my 2024 purchases with two new items featured in two transition season outfits using the maroon, olive, and gold color palette.

This color combo probably strikes you as perfectly on point for fall, but I would argue it's also a nice one for spring. Why would you want to try this color palette during the spring season?

• You wear the same colors year-round (like my husband, who put his maroon and tan to good use in the last SIA post) - due to preference, personal coloring, or adherence to a capsule wardrobe.

• You like to change up your colors to counteract your own seasonal color palette boredom. For some of us, wearing a limited set of colors all season would be boring fast.

• To stand out from the crowd. Varying from the standard season colors boosts your visibility and highlights your personal style.

• To get more use from what you have in your closet. Especially if you live somewhere with short fall and/or spring seasons (and who doesn't these days, it seems), putting your items into outfits in both shoulder seasons increases your count of item wears and decreases your cost per wear.

• You have bought something "out of season" (in a sale, thrifting, etc.) and want to wear it right away.

Pairing maroon and olive is a nice way to wear the complementary Red & Green color combo without the Christmas vibe. One thing I like about adding gold to the maroon and olive color scheme is that it lights and brightens in a lovely way that feels right for spring. You can also further "spring-ify" the color combination by lightening one or both of the colors. For example, olive could be lightened to aloe vera/sage or pale green. Maroon could be lightened to strawberry red, watermelon pink, or warm blush.

For today's post, however, we are sticking close to the original olive and maroon color combination.

First, here are the two new items that entered my wardrobe in December. Both of these styles might be familiar to you from previous posts in this series. The floral top is the very standard rib-knit T that I have been not buying as much in recent years but I couldn't resist the color and print on this one. The maroon pants are my current favorite style (it is true to the "effortless" description in its name) that I shared recently in red plaid, black micro geo print, and teal. I had hoped that this shade of dark red would work well with the maroon items in my closet, and I was not disappointed!

My first outfit of the day simply combines these two pieces together. It's always nice when you can pair new purchases together like this. Because the day was still cool, I added a wool sweater vest in olive to create a print variation on the "modern twin set" color formula. You'll notice that the gold color is limited in this outfit, but the cream in the top's print brings some of that lighter feel into the look.

OOTD: 3/16/25

Since my maroon flats were a great match the color of the pants, I decided to wear them for that classic "shoes matching pants" vibe that creates a very cohesive and low-key bottom half to the look.

This outfit also provided an excuse for me to debut a new layered necklace set that I made in shades of olive, lime, dark red, brown, and gold. I call it the Apple Harvest necklace because the colors are so reminiscent of an apple orchard. (I made it with the black, olive, orange, and maroon floral skirt in outfit 2 in this post in mind.) I admit that it doesn't stand out very well against the high-contrast print of my t-shirt but it's interesting how this combination serves to tone down the impact of what might otherwise be a statement piece. (I'll show the necklaces more clearly below without the competing background.)

For my daily bracelet stack, I settled on a paper bead bracelet set in olive, cream, and gold (paper to bead details with outfit 3 here), which I supplemented with various green and gold bracelets in stone and metal. The round olive green beads are serpentine, and the chip beads are jade. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}

For once, today's earrings are not my usual bead soup creations! Instead I made them from some of the beads used in the Apple Harvest necklace to create a matching set...and I wore them together, which is not my norm. I saw a video (sorry, don't remember where) that said matching jewelry sets were not on trend for 2025 and...I'm not kidding...I immediately felt the desire to create and wear some sets this year! I guess I'm just contrary.

My second outfit of the day incorporates the same maroon pants with an olive jacket and camel-gold scarf for a colorblocked take on the maroon, olive, and gold theme.

OOTD: 3/4/25

Although it's mostly obscured, I did pick a coordinating print top to wear that subtly combines versions of these colors (a 2024 birthday present I wore for an SIA challenge in January).

When I got this scarf as a gift from my husband, I was initially just thrilled by the fact that it has text and drawings from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland on it. But it actually has turned out to be a really useful color of scarf as well. It works nicely with my golden hair color and makes for easy bookending with gold shoes.

If you've resisted the siren call of the metallic shoe option, I discuss some of the many benefits of these shoes (particularly for warm weather) in this post. Since I have warm toned hair and cool toned skin, I have found a place for both gold and silver/pewter shoes in my wardrobe.

I am wearing a memory wire bracelet made with four rounds of wire, which is a little less than I prefer but I was at the end of a coil of memory wire and wanted to make use of what I had. So I decided to supplement that bracelet with a single stretch bracelet I made using 8mm gold tone beads. This is not something I would normally have thought to do, but I liked it how it turned out! Particularly in this outfit where the gold tones have significant presence, the extra gold metal looks great. (And the gold beads are still shiny enough that you can see my camera on its tripod reflected in the beads, haha.)

My earrings were again made to coordinate with the other jewelry, using the same colors and some of the same beads to make a simple stack style earring that stands out well against the background of the scarf.

My jewelry has maroon in it, but no olive because it was inspired by this blouse (another 2024 purchase) that has a lot of dark red tones with some grey and coral accents. I chose to add some brighter orange to pop against the darker colors in the blouse. (I actually made a full set with a layered necklace in addition to the bracelet and earrings; I will show you those once I wear the necklace.)

If you're on the fence about the maroon and olive color combo (or variations thereof), I present this lovely foliage from the Missouri Botanical Gardens that brings these colors together beautifully. They accented it with a lighter yellow rather than gold, but note the use of a light cream stone surrounding the pool. I think it's a good representation of how fresh and natural these colors look together...in fall or otherwise!

Green and Maroon Color Combination, Missouri Botanical Gardens - 10/1/2017

Would you wear olive and/or maroon...or one of their lighter alternatives? Would you wear them together? Do you like to wear colors or color combos outside their traditional seasons of the year? Are you a fan or wearing matching jewelry sets? Do you wear the pieces together or break them up? Do you have any metallic shoes in your wardrobe?

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