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. 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.