In my last post, I shared this soft pink outfit inspired by a painting of Joan of Arc for the latest Style Imitating Art challenge. I think I mentioned that this base outfit of pink sweater + vest and beige pants + ankle boots is a combination of two Pleasing Pairings that I like to wear together, and today you will see evidence of that as I present some OOTD featuring the color combination soft pink + beige/taupe. You'll be seeing some of the pieces I've worn in previous posts in this series, which just goes to show that even with a relatively large wardrobe, I do wear the same things over and over again, just in slightly tweaked outfits!
Let's get started...
The Outer Column or "Suit"
The outer column/"suit" color formula is a topper and bottom piece in the same/similar colors.
This dusky rose cardigan and pants combination was the starting point for OOTD #1 in my soft pink + brown post. In this outfit, I paired my "suit" with a very pale pink t-shirt for a tonal combination, and I brought the beige color in with my accessories.
My sneakers are white and beige with a soft pink stripe detail on the sides. Wearing white sneakers with non-casual pants was a bit of a stretch for me, I admit, but I actually thought it was a pretty fun look. (I wore it as a casual weekend outfit...on last Easter Sunday, actually.) The white sneakers popped against the dark pink in an interesting way.
I chose a floral scarf with a beige background...which I also wore in OOTD #1 in my soft pink + black post. I created a layered look by wearing it over a gold tassel necklace and a mixed metal multi-chain necklace.
For Easter Sunday, obviously my daily bracelet stack needed to feature rabbits! This all-DIY stack was built around a paper bead bracelet set in pink, taupe, and silver that I made to coordinate with the pink rabbit sweater I showed above. I added a combination of lighter and brighter pink bead bracelets to work with the varied pink tones of the scarf. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}
My earrings of the day are yet another bead soup creation made to match this scarf. I combined round glass and wood beads with clay heishi beads in a simple beads-on-a-stick design; alternating the round beads with the colorful thin heishi beads creates some extra visual interest.
The Inner Column
The inner column color formula is a top and bottom piece in the same/similar colors. A dress or jumpsuit in a single color/print is the one-piece way create an inner column, but you can also create it with separates.
While the classic inner column of color consists of solid pieces, I like to do a variant in which a solid piece is paired with a print piece that has the same/similar color background. In this case, my floral print thermal top has a slightly more "faded" look than the pants, but they share a very similar color of dusky pink. Of course the inner column can be layered over with a topper piece, but in this outfit, I have skipped the outer layer. For me, a two-piece outfit looks more interesting when one of the items has a print, and that's what I've done here.
As in the previous outfit, I have added the beige tones with my accessories (which do not perfectly match each other or the tan colors in the top's floral print but work together nicely). The scarf with text and drawings from the original Alice book (a gift from my husband) creates a pleasant print mix with the top.
My taupe smoking flats are a thrifted Gap pair that have been a quiet champion in my closet since 2015.
My daily bracelet stack is built around a paper bead bracelet set I made to match the beige bird scarf shown below. The range of soft pink tones in this set were a good fit with my outfit, and the beige and black neutrals also appear in the rest of my look. I filled out the stack with two gold spacer bead bracelets from Amazon as well as two DIY creations - a light pink glass and a beige wood bead bracelet. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}
This paper bead bracelet set is a great opportunity for me to showcase the power of painting catalog/magazine/junk mail/etc. pages to create customized paper for making beads. I added acrylic craft paint to two of my papers before cutting the strips - and I added marker to the edges of the strips for the other beads - so all of these papers have added color to make them work for my color palette of soft pink, beige, and black. I find it hard to keep up my supply of soft pink paper both because it seems less common than other colors and I use it more. Luckily, paint can come to the rescue, allowing me to create as much soft pink paper as I need! Of course you can use marker instead, but I have a better range of soft pink colors in my paint than I do in my markers. These examples will also show the different in visual texture between using acrylic paint and marker.
My top pink, black, and white paper bead bracelet with the flower charm started as this page from a Coldwater Creek catalog. The two dresses on the ends had a bit of blush pink in them but otherwise the colors were black and white. I was attracted to the variety of small scale prints on the page, knowing that the white space could be covered in paint. So I used a light soft pink ("sakura" color, i.e. cherry blossom in Japanese) to create a pretty background. Because I was adding a lot of color with paint, it was easiest to paint the paper before cutting the strips. As for the finished beads, not only are they a great fit with my color palette but the contrast between the more textured pink paint and the more shiny prints from the original paper looks really cool.
The second paper bead bracelet (third one down in the stack) started with a Garnet Hill catalog cover. (I started getting this catalog on the recommendation of my friend Marsha, who thought they would make good beads - and she was 100% correct.) This paper has a great range of soft pink colors with white and beige, but I decided I wanted to add some of the contrasting black to liven up the beads a little. In this case, I used black marker just along some of the white parts of the strips after they were cut. (Remember, when rolling bicone paper beads, only a thin bit along the top edge shows on the finished bead so you can leave the center area of the strip as is.) I also added gold marker along the side edge to cover the white paper core of this thicker paper. I love the pink stripy goodness of these beads, and I am happy with how adding some black has punched them up a bit.
The last paper bead bracelet (bottom of the stack) is from a Lands End catalog page featuring a woman in a beige striped sweater, yet another good starting point for adding pink paint. I used a richer pink on this page, covering the pale background and the white stripes in the sweater. I also added some brown paint over her face, not because her skin tone looked off but to cover up the facial features which in my experience can stand out surprisingly clearly on a rolled bead. (Or maybe not so surprisingly, given how our brains are wired to see faces.) I could have instead cut the strips and then covered up any facial features with marker but I already had my paint out and I was enjoying the painting process. And because the facial features were covered with brown paint, I could add some gold marker (as I did the black in the previous example) for a secondary jazz-up of these strips. (The gold alone doesn't always cover the facial features entirely.) I think these might be my favorite of the three, though maybe that's because it was the most fun to make.
My DIY earrings are not bead soup creations this time! Instead I used some small peach agate beads and two connectors (from two different subscription bead boxes) to make some fringe earrings. It's interesting, I'm sure other people did this too, but I haven't seen any photos/videos online where other users of this subscription box turned the connectors on their side to use in earrings. But I thought that the open areas along the sides would work well for dangling a row of beads down so I gave it a shot. I loved how this turned out, and I actually made several pairs of the same style using different small stone beads until I ran out of connectors.
The Modern Twin Set
The modern twin set color formula is a top and topper piece in the same/similar colors. This is one of my very favorite color formulas in every season.
In the cold seasons, my "light sepia rose" long puffer vest gets combined frequently with my various light pink sweaters. Here I'm wearing it with a blush pink marl pullover, the beige slim-leg knit pants and ankle boot Pleasing Pairing, and a contrasting color scarf in light-to-medium colors. This sweater has a bit of beige in the marled pattern so the beige pants are an easy match to make, but as you've seen, I routinely wear the beige pants/boots with this puffer vest.
In this example, I'm wearing the same combination with my beloved sweet rabbit sweater and a light neutral tone owl scarf with ivory, beige, and grey in the print. This scarf is actually an infinity scarf but I'm wearing it around the neck and left long like a rectangular scarf. I added a brown scarf ring to hold the two sides of the scarf in place so that it more closely mimics a rectangular scarf. (Note that the bunnies on the sweater are hiding behind the owls, hoping to go unnoticed by these predatory modern dinosaurs.)
Here's that same base outfit a third time, just with different accessories: a white scarf with gold snowflakes (worn in the usual infinity scarf mode) with a DIY bracelet set and earrings that I made to coordinate with the bunny sweater in shades of pink and beige.
The Colorblock
The colorblock color formula is a top and bottom (and optionally, a topper) piece in all different colors. You can execute this formula more strictly with clothing items of all different solid colors or more loosely by incorporating prints as desired.
This outfit has a good amount of contrast from putting together a soft pink cardigan, dark wash blue jeans, and a white-and-black striped T-shirt as my three piece color block.
Once again, the beige in this outfit comes from the accessories. The beige-background bird scarf makes another appearance, creating a really nice print mix with the striped top. It also creates some lowered contrast near my face since the beige is not vastly different in color or value (dark or light) from my face and hair. I have learned and forgotten dozens of times that this scarf trick works like a charm to make high contrast outfits look less dramatically contrasting against my own muted coloring. I really like the look of a boldly contrasting outfit, and sometimes I'm all in for wearing one (even if the outfit "wears me" rather than the other way around), but I have to admit that the color advice people are not wrong that my soft coloring stands up better when I have less contrast around my face.
I added more of the beige color with my ankle boots, which also provide that bookending effect with my scarf/hair. Not wearing skinny jeans? Slim pants and jeans are making a "gentle comeback" according to Angie Cox, and I agree that at this point, they are the "forever modern classic standard." So I say that if you're in the mood, "roll 'em if you've got 'em"...or don't roll them but wear them at their normal length.
My daily bracelet stack probably look familiar because I wore it in the dusky rose pants and floral print top above and showed the paper bead page to bead transformation using pink paint. The only difference in the stack is I substituted a bright pink and black agate bead bracelet for the beige wood one and removed the smaller gold bracelet to create a 6 bracelet stack. The agate beads are 8mm, a bit chunkier than my usual, so I thought 6 bracelets created the right amount of stack for me, rather than my more usual 7 bracelets. With even chunkier bracelets, I'll go down to a 5 bracelet stack.
Another pair of not-bead-soup DIY earrings, this time made with two beige Czech glass cat beads that I bought with this design in mind. I decided to give my cat a regal look by using gold spacer beads to create a little pedestal for him to sit on and a crown to wear on his head. Silly, yes, but in this neutral colorway, and with the cats being the classic Czech shape, the effect is pretty subtle! (The songbirds on this scarf are not afraid of such tiny kitties, which are "leashed" to boot, so they are just going about their usual lives.)
My last outfit for the post revisits the rabbit sweater with beige pants/boots combo only without the light pink puffer vest. It creates a low-contrast color block by adding a white button up shirt underneath the sweater.
What do you think of the soft pink + beige/taupe color combination? Is this too "spring-like" for a winter outfit? Do you have any items that you wear over and over again in the same combination? Do you have any base outfits that you repeat, either repeating the entire outfit or changing the accessories?
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