Growing up, and even now, schools would have a special day for spirit week called Tacky Day. There was no formalized dress code detailing what tacky was, so kids pulled together outfits they thought best embodied the term. Mismatched pairs of socks, lopsided pony tails, glasses with tape on the bridge, but the most important elements: multiple prints in the same outfit. Bonus points if you wore multiple shirts all at once to get more patterns and prints on your body. Extra bonus points if you also had on bright colors. In hindsight, what were we thinking? Well not me, I had no school spirit. But does mixing prints automatically mean tacky? I declare no.
I personally believe that it is all in how you choose to do it. I chose to mix a star pattern with a green and black check. To me this outfit doesn’t say tacky. Maybe more quirky, or the cool teacher who thinks of the best field trips.
To me it’s more a matter of matching the colors and scale. Think about the colors that are in the items. Do you feel like they go together? And certainly, some prints/patterns feel like neutrals. Stripes, dots, and checks are fairly tame and play nicely with others. (Note that is essentially what I did here.) I hope to look more into this, in the days to come, look for more on how to do this with what I am able to pull from experts.
Do you mix and match different patterns in the same outfit?
A Wren Says 