The Year of Dressing Dangerously

Forget dieting, organizing, penny-pinching. This year I’m resolving to do something else: I’m resolving to be a fearless dresser.

The cold light of January always causes me to think what I could do better in life. But I hate resolutions that are all about nitpicking where I fall short. I don’t need any more pressure to lose weight or save money, thank you very much. To me the best resolutions are about embracing life: learning French, taking flamenco classes, and hosting monthly movie nights have been resolutions of past years. This year, I’m taking on my closet and daring myself to embrace color, new shapes, and yes, a little ol’ fashioned sex appeal.

Color

My fear of color started back in junior high. At that time, we were still feeling the shockwaves of the eighties. I have truly cringe-inducing photos from that time that show me in an upholstery-like rose print shirt and silk (silk!) coral pink shorts. But if my abuse of fabric was shocking, my abuse of color was downright deplorable. I thought wearing blue with blue was safe—never mind that I’d be wearing teal with navy—or worse, cornflower blue with teal (two colors that are so close together they look like they should match, so it’s jarringly wrong when they don’t). When I got to high school, I developed a rule to solve my psychedelic rainbow wardrobe woes. I’d always wear black on half my body and color on the other. It would be poppy-red capris with a black tank top or a black turtleneck with an apple green skirt. Black was my saving grace because everything went with black. A little while ago, I realized that my rule had become my rut.

To conquer my phobia, I’m back to basics and studying the color wheel. As my old textbooks prove (thanks, Art History 101!), color compositions rely on opposites. The eye craves contrast. The trick is to bring that into outfits. My little red dress has that much more pop with a light blue scarf. My dark purple knit top looks much more grounded with a lemon yellow belt. I admit this requires some forethought and lots of laying pieces out on the bed the night before. But the result—a confident, cheerful, smart outfit—is so worth it. Bonus points: all my old clothes feel new again.