If there has been one constant peer pressure in my life, it has been the ubiquity of jeans. I remember the buzz it created the first time a teacher wore jeans to school. And the multitude of times, when I asked what to wear to an event, I was told, “you can just wear your jeans”. Somehow, growing up, denim made its way into my “neutrals” category, and everyone knows that a neutral is something that goes with anything, right?
But, wait! Perhaps there is a better way.
Within an individual wardrobe, at least my own, I find limits to be liberating. Less is more. My daughters resemble me in that regard. When discussing the limits she was considering for colors to wear, my daughter stumbled on the following brilliant principle:
The type of tops you like to wear with jeans should all be in the colors you like to wear with blue.
Now, feel free to reject that principle or defer it to a later time if you, like me, are wearing jeans in various colors this season. Still, it seems so obvious for those many blue denim seasons.
For us, because we both like using blue in analogous color schemes, it means our flannels and sweatshirts will be purple and/or green: vivid violet and OD for me; grape, lime, and emerald for her. What colors do you like to wear with denim?
I have trouble with this because, well, I’m an earth tones person. I don’t wear blue. Except for jeans. I like it best when I get a print top (say a plaid or paisley) that incorporates just a touch of blue with colors I do usually wear (brick red, avocado). But a lot of the time I’m just wearing whatever. Today I’m at home and I’m wearing some old jeans with a green tank top and a light brown print shirt, and I’m quite convinced it *doesn’t* work, but it was the best I could come up with when I got up this morning. 😛
I’m experimenting with building my post babies wardrobe around the colors of a jewel-tone flannel shirt I adore. I wear my jeans with eggplant, mustard, forest green, of peacock shirts and the colorful flannel or a mustard sweater on top.
I agree with something I read that explained that things that “go with everything” that’s because they really go with nothing. I’m from an era where wearing jeans to school was forbidden to boys and girls simply could not wear pants to school at all. I like what one of the preppy bloggers, who doesn’t wear jeans, says: that they’re farmer pants. That said, I don’t wear jeans for dressy wear but do wear them when fitting in is a high priority. Sophie Woodward and Daniel Miller did a major study of denim wearing and found exactly that – jeans are worn for belonging.
When I was growing up in California, the “go with everything” item that girls wore – but not me – was the black skirt. Believe me, it did not go with everything, especially unrelated pastel lacy tops. It looks like your top and bottom halves are twisting away from each other to go their separate ways, the heavy bottom sinking and the light top half floating away.
I’m trying to get more blue in my wardrobe. I prefer it with mid-brown tones like bronze, taupe, maybe a rose beige, maybe a camel, cinnamon/sepia, sometimes metallics like matte silver, pewter, pale gold, sometimes frosty grey shade. And I sometimes like to bridge it with a vanilla. I’ve been experimenting with more low contrast pieces together so that lets out more eye-popping yellow or orange shades, though I do wear a lot of an off shade of red that’s a bit more muted and duskier than straight red. Olive drab or breen would be okay, too. But I honestly never start an outfit off with jeans, even when I think I’m going to have to use them as fallback. I see jeans and I can’t think further. 😀
I also think jeans work with all browns. My problem is I like to wear brown with pink and pink is, in my mind, the color that proves that jeans DO NOT go with everything.
I had never really thought of it in those words, but jeans really are about fitting in. In a way, I suppose, so is wearing black. Cuz black pants go with everything, right? 😉