Guys. I messed up.
I hate this outfit!! Laura did a wonderful job shooting this lewk and the background is actually incredibly cute of a boombox in North Augusta, BUT I messed it up by styling too many prints.
Have you ever looked back at pictures and wondered…what was I thinking?! This has happened to me NUMEROUS times however, it’s the first time it’s happened to me with a lewk I styled for a shoot to use on LyvRoxStyle.com!
But!!! This is what happens as we venture into new trends and styles! Sometimes we try too hard and hate our outfit.
So let’s walk through how I made this too BUSY and TEW MUCH!
Immediately, I know what the problem is!
The prints are too much alike and they’re competing with each other. It’s too busy, your eye isn’t sure where to look and it’s just TEW MUCH!!!!
How freaking awesome is this background?!
It’s so cute it almost saves my outfit from the depths of despair but not quite!
The reasons I THOUGHT these items would flow together are because…
1. I thought the pink tones in the panther print on the blazer would work well with the mesh long sleeve shirt I layered under the camo overall dress. In fact, the jacket and shirt would work great together on their own away from the camo dress! (Maybe with a pair of white jeans…)
2. I also thought that because the camo dress and blazer had “like” tones and they would coordinate well together. The two prints do exactly the opposite! They both have the same tones, but the size of the prints are too similar.
What could I have done to simply declutter the lewk?!
All I would’ve had to do was take the blazer off and the lewk would’ve been great!
In this shot you can see I kept the neutral pink tones going in my pump too with just a pop of metallic trim.
Guess what…I didn’t do any shots with the jacket off. So let’s just imagine that everything would’ve be fine had I done that!
I love mixing prints and usually I do a better job!
I still very much like each piece of the lewk individually!
I actually have worn this camo dress several times before with just a black mock turtleneck and my combat heels. I wanted to shoot it with a more edgy vibe and it just didn’t work out! And that happens sometimes, it’s all good.
Here’s a quick flashback to a lewk where I styled two prints and got it right. The stripes in the top are a larger scale print. The leopard spots on the skirt are more of a smaller print and the black in BOTH prints is what keeps the eye moving and flowing. The prints are different enough not to compete with each other, but have a common tone to make it work without clashing.
LOVED these shots from 2016 and I still would wear that outfit to this day.
Thankfully, I dialed it back a few notches with this plaid overall dress moment and it WERKED!
For me, black on black is a safe zone, which I know I have probably mentioned a thousand times, my bad if so! Because of that being my safe zone I often approach a new trend using that color a lot.
I styled the mesh long sleeve shirt and funky socks to break up the ALL black vibe. Also, the texture of those two items added some FUNK and spice.
Gotta have the funk.
I anticipated I might not like the “overall dress” look for seasons to come so I stuck with a lower end price point and got both dresses we are discussing from Forever21.
Black also helps me take a trend that might be predominately popular in a younger age group than mine and make it relatable and appropriate with mine.
I love using the mesh long sleeve shirts for layering! I’ve linked below, also from Forever21! I am wearing a size medium in the black and pink tops used for this post.
The reason I added the blazer to the first lewk was an attempt to give it more of a business casual vibe.
I could have easily added a black blazer to this lewk and it would’ve been a knock out of the park.
I just over thought it and tried too hard.
Have you ever tried to wear an outfit and when it turned out as planned you just thought, well I’m never wearing that again?!
It doesn’t have to be like that!! What can we do to make it better?
Can we add or subtract some items like I did to declutter?
We ALL end up with outfits we hate sometimes and it’s ok…it’s just clothes!
But you won’t find out which pieces help you channel you inner wonder woman until you try.
So push your shoulders back and keep your chin up, because being you ROX!
Lyv
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