Wearing Red & Green Past December

Best laid plans... I was all set to wear blue and orange for this week's Monday Style Prompt - wear complementary colours - then a friend reminded me that Monday was "Wear Red Day" in honour of fallen RCMP Officer Wynn, so I changed my focus to red... which meant green... which I should have figured out Sunday night but sometimes real life style means you figure it out while you're brushing your teeth in the morning...

Dress $5.60 and sweater $8 VV Boutique

I just wasn't brave enough to boldly pair this sweater with my green pants.  Maybe I could have pulled it off, but I took the easy way out and reached for what turns out to be my only patterned piece with red and green - this pretty dress...

Then, I thought about wearing my green blazer with the dress to pick up on the green in the pattern, but it detracted from the red too much - and honour trumps style challenges.  So I turned to shoes and accessories to bring in the complementary colour...

Shoes, tights and accessories from my closet.

The green brooch was a last minute addition so that I could have at least 3 hits of green so people would know I was doing it on purpose instead of lingering on Christmas.

So pretty!

Brooch from my closet and earrings handmedown from She Does Create!

The brooch looks more stark in photos than it did in real life... I hope!

I liked how it echoed the pattern in the dress!

(Blurry photo courtesy of Monday.)

In retrospect, a chambray middle layer might have grounded this outfit!  And in prospect, I have some thrifting to do to fill the red/green holes in my closet!!  AND, I promise to take the plunge into BOLD contrast sometime this week - so stay tuned here, on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!  I will be wearing my complementary colours loud and proud for the last few days of Black Out Style with a couple styling tips:

1. Either colour-block boldly or ensure there are 3 hits of accent colour
2. Ground the contrast with some kind of neutral - belt, shoe, hose, top, whatever

I'm not done with you, Complementary Colours!