Brighten your style with color-blocking

The best way to instantly brighten your style is to step out on the street in a great color-blocking outfit. Color-blocking is taking extremely bright, vibrant, contrasting solid fabrics and wearing them together. 

Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Rachel Breaux

The best way to instantly brighten your style is to step out on the street in a great color-blocking outfit. Color-blocking is taking extremely bright, vibrant, contrasting solid fabrics and wearing them together.  Color-blocking is a great way to add whimsicality and flirtatiousness to your style, with minimal effort. Even better – you probably already have the necessary pieces in your closet! Calvin Klein has featured several color block dresses this season, with a three quarter length sleeved, high necklace, grey and yellow block dress, to pieces with a classic touch, using the color-block look in a sleeveless sheath, with half the dress in black, and half the dress in camel. Orange is a great color to use in color-blocking, as Kate Space did in her "parker” long sleeve sheath dress. Kate Winslet wore a black and red Stella McCartney color-block dress to a recent red carpet event with ankle strap sandals. Leighton Meister, one of the lead characters in the US hit show Gossip Girl, wore a sleeveless color-block dress with white, orange, with down tressed hair, soft make-up and nude pumps. Kim Kardashian, one of America’s fashion royals, wore a long sleeve purple satin shirt, paired with an orange silk pencil skirt. There are several key things to keep in mind for pulling off the color-block trend. Firstly, remember that the color must be solid. There can be no patterns of any kind. Secondly, you must limit the amount of colors: three at the most. To make it easy, you can pick up a color-block dress. For separates, grab your brightest color solid top, your brightest color skirt or pant, and wear them together. For a true trend look, pair colors on opposite sides of the spectrum: yellows with purples, blues with oranges, reds with greens. If you want to bring the look to work, you can tone down the vibrant hues: color-block with tans and blacks, or navies and browns. Because color-blocking is often done horizontally, it can make you appear shorter. So if you are petite, stay away from a dress that ends around your knees. Best to stay with pieces that are on the extremes:skirts that are shorter for going out, or pants that are ankle length or longer. For accessories, go with solid colors: patent also looks great with this look. That’s the fashion scoop for this week. Got a thought? Trend? Style you hate? Send it my way.