Black and White and Floral

One of my cool-weather looks; the weather here is usually never THAT bad, but it can get chilly, so if I want to wear an outfit, I need my layers. Either that, or I pretend I am brave. (Which is like never, because I end up hating myself for being so dumb!) The piece this whole look is based around is the black and white dress with interesting floral graphics I am wearing. I found it at a thrift, but has an H&M tag. It has a strange shift-like cut, and the bubble skirt was a little off-putting at first, but I tried it on with a waist belt and I was sold. I used my snug black cardigan to create the defined-waist look I prefer, but I could see myself wearing it in the spring or summer with a waist belt and black ballet lace-up flats. I called the dress "black and white", but there are many values of silvery-gray and I played upon those values with my accessories: hence the silver scarf and earrings! I even tried skew the colors of the boots to play upon the overall look. Yeesh, when I have a theme, I really run with it! The outfit is nothing special, but it was fun, cute, and I really wanted to make the dress wearable for everyday events. So for that purpose, I think it worked out just fine.

It's funny how much "non color" I wore, considering how much color affects my clothing/makeup choices, but in my mind, black and white and silver and gray are their own colors when I am wearing them - although next time I might wear a bright lipstick for that little extra pop. ;)

The tree, cloud, and sunset photos were all taken the same day while I was hanging out with the friend who kindly took my outfit photos, and we hit up a park later on. It was so beautiful!

Dress, cardigan, boots - thrifted

Scarf - Target

Earrings - Tilly's

<3 The Magpie

Cheerful "Goth"

This dress is an unusual choice for me; I usually never go for something so acidly bright, so yellow, so babydoll, so short.. It attracted me though, from the moment I saw it. A moment of hesitation, a doubtful frown plagued my first time view of it.. I even almost left it on the rack. But here I am wearing it, still a little doubtful, but loving the strange edge it lent me for the day. The biggest reason I bought it was because it reminded me of another tiny shockingly bright dress I had seen in a photo somewhere, off in the nets, worn by the songstress Lana Del Rey to a festival. It was so different and crazy and strange, and I of course fell kinda in love with it. It was that image stayed in the back of my mind somewhere, and pushed me over my moment's worth of hesitation. 

Dress I was inspired by.

As cheerful and youthful as the dress seems, the violent clash of the dark purples and teals colliding with that extremely shocking acidic yellow made me feel like the outfit had a darker, almost gothic vibe, which  I tried to play up with my velvet black choker and heavy lipstick. One can only go so much goth on a hot day though. I will have to try to figure out other ways to style this dress, maybe with some black tights and dark sweater? I did enjoy the simple daring of it, as much as I worried about it riding up TOO far up for comfort. Go bold or go home, amirite?

Oh ps, it's a good outfit for shocking people who think they know you :) 

Dress, bag - thrifted

Sandals - Old Navy

Earrings - World Market

<3 The Magpie

Debate Crusher

This outfit was from the day I lead my team of classmates in a rousing debate, utterly crushing our opponents. It was a pretty glorious thing to witness. 25 extra credit points, heeeeyyyyy. This is one of those outfits I privately refer to as "ragamuffin-chic". Like I could be scrubby wild thing, but hey, I'm also cute. A lot of my outfits I wouldn't consider fashionable, they are more like a collection of odds and ends, baubles, and trinkets. It's definitely my natural habitat, but it's also weird to actually wear, because you are exclaiming "Hey, this is me!" in public and that can be kind of odd and scary. 

I obviously went for a lot of red and blue, but I also threw in some gold pins and gray boots because why not? The hat was a cheapie find at an Asian market where you only pay in cash, and it's a little ridiculous, but also fun. I wore the jean jacket to tone down the fanciness of the skirt, and matched my scarf with practically everything. Not sure if I would wear it again, but it's the kind of inventive outfit you make up and just go for it. Same old, same old. 

 Scarf - Old Navy

Pins, jacket, sweater - thrifted

Earrings - Flea market

Boots - Modcloth

Skirt - Ruche

<3 The Magpie

The Red Teal Blues

I simply could not get the formatting of the photographs for this post to look how I wanted them to. I guess that's what to expect when you're a total noobie!  My title for this post really says it all; the colors I am wearing are bright, saturated, and punchy. Black toned it down, but if I simply took off my sweater, the brightness would go up a hundredfold! I was inspired to wear the blue and teal accents because of the color of the flowers in the print of the dress. Looking back, I wish I had worn bright red lipstick, but maybe that would be overkill? This is one of those outfits that puzzle me. It's very much me and my style, but would I wear it again? And in that color combination? Was the weather cool enough for the cardigan but also warm enough for those kind of espadrilles shoes? It seems very much a color experimentation; the kind of outfit that I look back on and REALLY want to know what people thought when they saw me. Did it make them think at all? I don't care if they liked or disliked how I looked, I just want to know what people thought OF it. Dos that even make sense? I want to subtly push color boundaries and norms, and wear unexpected outfits out of seemingly mundane things. I wouldn't say I'm a crazy dresser, nor do I try to wear something for shock value. Merely, what I wear is an extension of how I think, and who I am, and the ideas that I want to experiment with. In a way, I'm trying to be a truer version of myself, down to my scratched and faded fingernail polish and secondhand clothes. 

The color breakdown goes like this: long teal earrings matched the ribbon and flower print, and the bright cobalt blue of the bag hints are hinted in the flowers as well. The black cardigan helped ground the brightness of everything, and the strappy shoes finished the outfit and made a full circle by referencing the black of the sweater. Black, teal, teal, red, cobalt, mixed colors, black. The final sunset pic was from that night and seemed to fit my overall fondness of vivid colors. 

Cardigan, bag - thrifted

Dress - flea market

Shoes - Modcloth

<3 The Magpie

Tribal Multicolored

I bought this skirt on a whim (surprise, surprise). The tribal looking pattern was just so interesting; bright and colorful, but faded at the same time, and the pattern seemed to be placed directly on top of the fabric, as the skirt itself is white underneath. Speaking of the fabric, it's a stiff and heavy thing, with a bell-like shape that holds in the wind. I went for casual-fancy on this outfit, with my old gray beanie and my smart black boots toning the saturation down. I loved how the colors and patterns of the heavily-beaded necklace seemed to go with the skirt while not feeling too matchy-matchy. Also, like my model posing? I got that cool lean going on, the far away stare... All I need now is to grow like, 600 inches. Honestly though, I'm not that photogenic. I think I look totally fine in person, but often in photographs, that attractiveness gets lost and wanders into a dark alley where it gets mugged and gets amnesia. So what you see is are carefully curated photos that get cut down from the actual amount of photographs taken. Sorry, went off on a rabbit trail there, just like my good looks.

The day I wore this outfit, my two friends in my class also wore cute outfits, so we strode down all the sidewalks looking like an awesome girl gang - complete with a slo-mo, epic music shot and giant fans blowing our perfect hair back. It was great.

Looking back at this post makes me really want to wear this skirt again - I unfortunately had my camera stolen recently *cries* along with the part that attaches the camera to my tripod, so I haven't been able to capture any of my recent looks these last 2 weeks.  I assure you though, they were magnificent. I think I will definitely wear this same skirt out tomorrow for a school event. Yay for lots of colors!

Shirt, skirt - Target

Necklace - Walmart 

Boots - Modcloth

Earrings - World Market

Beanie - stolen from my dad:)

<3 The Magpie

Periwinkle Skew

This dress was an unusual buy for me, covered as it is in a mottled floral pattern, and patterned in a "trendy" cut, but something about it spoke to me, and finding the scarf and the hat at the same time seemed to be a sign that it was meant to be. I loved the electric periwinkle purple-blue of the scarf, and the way you can pull out one of the many colors in the dress. I also liked that it was long-sleeve as that can be hard to find even in the winter. I hope I get another chance to wear it before spring as the days are heating up fast. I don't have much to say today because I have a terrible headache, but I really enjoyed wearing this outfit and taking the pictures was fun.

Dress, hat, scarf, coat - Target

Earrings - World Market

Boots - Modcloth

Bag - thrifted

<3 The Magpie