Fashion Challenge: Not Wearing Black

As of March 20th, spring is officially here. Not in my wardrobe though! Perhaps like some of you, I am getting tired of wearing black. Black is slimming, timeless and easy to wear, however, it is easy for it to become your go to when dressing. Now that a new season is upon us, I took a page from my favorite vlogger, Alyssa Beltempo, and did a one week fashion challenge of not wearing black. The reason for the challenge: rethink my wardrobe and mix up how I usually wear things. My main difficulty in completing this exercise was outerwear. What coat was I going to wear? Fortunately I have a cream coat and I remembered that I have red gloves and a red purse:

Unfortunately, the one area I did fail was on was in terms of boots. I only own black winter boots.

My Day 1 outfit was a navy top, dark wash skinny jeans, caramel boots, a silk scarf and my treasured burgundy red leather blazer from Danier:

For Day 2, I wore a suit that makes me feel like a wannabe Hillary Clinton. It is a light blue number worn with a cream blouse and statement necklace:

By Day 3, I decided that I should continue with a monochromatic look. I went for an unusual combination for me, head to toe red: red turtleneck, red jeans, gray booties and a jean jacket. I also added a Desigual scarf to soften the look a little.

By Day 4, I decided I was tired of pants and switched to a navy flower print dress that I purchased more than 5 years ago. It is loose and very comfortable. I paired it with my cozy, oatmeal colored sweater, purchased at the Nyons market in Provence, with my go to caramel leather boots.

By Friday (Day 5), I was back to my go to color, red! The outfit I selected is actually one of my frequently worn Friday outfits: jeans, white t, red pumps and red ruffle necked wool cardigan:

I purchased the cardigan more than 10 years ago and I still love it! Being sustainable means keeping and wearing the clothes that you have.

On Day 6, I decided to continue with the monochromatic theme and wear head to toe gray, with a pop of color from my yellow belt:

My daughter told me that head to toe gray is a no-no, but I thought it worked. It was actually a new outfit combination for me and I loved wearing the gray with the yellow belt.

On Sunday (day 7), I decided to finish the week with full on bright color. I took out my pink jeans and paired them with a white t, a jean shirt and my colorful Peruvian alpaca wool scarf:

It was a bit kooky with my red purse, but hey, the challenge for the week was not to wear black.

This exercise really did make me rethink my outfits and find ways of wearing my clothes in a different way. It also showed me how much I actually enjoy wearing bright colors, although it did take some courage to wear some of the color combinations that I selected. Guess I’m not the shrinking violet type, huh?

Challenge for the week: Do you want to try not wearing black for a week? Or is there another similar challenge that you could do by not wearing your favorite pieces for a week? The idea is to revisit your closet and wear your clothes in new ways. Please let me know what you try!