How to Wear Navy and Green with Polka Dots for Winter/Spring 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 Speckles, Spots, & Polka Dots...and if you asked me if I like polka dots, I'll say YES! But when I look at my wardrobe, the top prints are stripes, florals, and animals/zoological prints. I have some dots, but mostly for summer.

Fortunately the weather cooperated with a cool day last week interspersed among the warm "false spring" days so I could wear this thrifted CJ Banks quilted vest that has a geometric design with a dot vibe to it. The rest of my quilted/puffy vests are solid colors, but this navy and white one is very easy to style because it works with pretty much any color (maybe not black?).

I wore it over a navy T (retail CJ Banks) and crisp green pants (thrifted Eloquii) in honor of St. Patrick's Day and the coming arrival of spring. "Blue and green should never be seen" is nonsense, especially when the blue in question is navy blue! This repeat of navy in the top and topper piece creates a variant on the "modern twin set" color formula. Another option for this color combination is to wear navy/denim on the bottom with a green top, making an outer column/"suit" color formula.

OOTD 3/11/25

Since I do have a number of polka dot scarves, it was easy to add this thrifted two-tone scarf with tiny white dots, which I wore in a tight necklace style with a long tassel necklace below it. With 108 wears so far and a CPW of $0.19, this necklace has been an unexpected workhorse in my jewelry wardrobe. It's just the perfect thing to add a quick long vertical element to break up an expanse of shirt fabric.

For some fun additional print mixing, I added these thrifted Target loafers with a blue and green floral print on a black background. Yes, I'm wearing a navy top + vest with black shoes, and it's OK, I promise!

OOTD 2/10/25

In this outfit, I think the inclusion of both the blue and black colors together in the shoes creates what I call an "in the span" situation for pairing with the navy. It's like the navy falls between the cobalt blue and black on a continuum of blue colors where you go from white (the very palest possible blue) through the various light to dark blues to black (the very darkest possible blue). Navy is a mixture of blue and black, so the three colors kind of make sense together. If this sounds unnecessarily complicated: Hello, I'm Sally in St Paul and welcome to my blog of unnecessarily complicated sartorial analysis! Fortunately, the best way to determine whether a combination of pieces will work in an outfit is to simply put them on and see what you think! In reviewing my OOTD with these loafers, I can see that I will wear them pretty freely with either black or navy clothing.

In my experience, black and dark navy are such similar colors that they can mixed successfully when (1) one of them is in a small dose, like the black background of these shoes and (2) they are visually separated in the outfit, like the navy top and black shoes. This isn't the ONLY situation in which the combo works, but this is the easiest case to experiment with, for those of us (raises hand) who feels weird about wearing black and navy together. If you want to pair black and navy in larger amounts and in closer proximity (especially clothing items), I think you're better off pairing black with a light/bright navy that is a clearly distinct color.

For my daily bracelet stack, I started with a paper bead bracelet set in a navy, green, white, and gold color palette (page to bead details with Outfit #2 here). I added DIY bead bracelets with blue lapis lazuli stones, green glass with gold spacers, and mixed green glass beads, and I finished it off with a white (genuine) pearl bracelet that came with a necklace I bought. I never wear the matching necklace and bracelet together but I like both of them and have gotten good use from them as stacking pieces. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}

Today's earrings are handmade but are not bead soup creations this time! Instead I have a 3-year-old pair of the world's easiest DIY hoop earrings in which I added 4mm dark green malachite stone beads and 3mm gold spacers to premade gold earring hoops from Amazon. I like that the round beads in my earrings and on several of my bracelets repeat the "polka dot" shape that was today's theme.

Now let's review the Speckles, Spots, & Polka Dots 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

"This was quite a difficult theme for me because I don't own much in the way of dots and spots, so finding something pre-loved was a challenge! After going through some stuff in storage I pulled out this vintage dress which has tiny dots in the pattern. It was a fantastic find on eBay and I really should wear it more!"

Jane of Preloved-Vintage-Handmade

"How cool is this hooded dress!!! - It’s been handmade in the 1970’s by someone with a really fun sense of style – how often do you see a blue and white spotty dress with a red hood (even in the 70’s) 😂

I’ve done some work on it myself adding to the crazy vibes…

- I’ve shortened it and used the fabric removed to face the inside so when the zip is open, it has a neat, finished look.

- I’ve taken the sleeves to maximum length adding red bias binding as a cuff to match the hood lining.

- and finally, I’ve replaced the original zip with a chunky oversized one which injects yet more personality into this funky little frock.

So when Shelbee chose ‘Freckles, Spots & Polka Dots’ as the T6 theme for March, I couldn’t wait to show off my handywork and give this dress it’s 15 minutes of fame!"

Jodie of Jodie's Touch of Style

"I had my crew wear polka dot skirts in 3 different ways. I'm showing how to casualize it. The skirt I bought from a clothing rental company because I can also wear it upside down as a top. The sweatshirt isn't thrifted, but I loved the message: Kindness is Free-sprinke it everywhere."

Nancy of Nancy's Fashion Style

"So I had nothing, absolutely nothing, with polka dots in my closet. Strange actually because I do like them. Well, time to shop on Vinted again. And I didn't even need that much time to "spot" this beautiful blazer. From a Dutch designer, Frans Molenaar, in collaboration with C&A. I love these kinds of blazers, nice and casual, tight-fitting. Looks nice on everything!"

Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge

"I have quite a few preloved pieces that have speckles, spots, and polka dots so I had planned to combine multiple dotty and spotty things into one outfit. But try as I might, I failed miserably. None of my dotty things worked well with each other. So I styled this speckled dress, which had stains (or spots) and holes in it when I brought it home from the thrift shop. I patched it all up with denim scraps and added a preloved leopard spotted scarf, a thrifted denim jacket, and my distressed cowgirl boots. I was not wholly satisfied because I wanted to incorporate more dotty things, but I ended up really loving this outfit anyway."

Next month's topic is currently undecided, but I'm sure it will provide a fun challenge!

In the meantime, visit these lovely bloggers for the details of their thrifted Speckles, Spots, & Polka Dots 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

Are you a polka dot (or spots or speckles) lover? What is your favorite print? How well does your closet reflect your favorite prints...or lack thereof? Would you wear black and navy together? If so, in what way? What do you think of the blue + green?

Blogs I link up with are listed here.