3 Ways to Style Colored Jeans

Or Any Colored Bottom!

Happy day, dear reader of mine!

Here’s hoping your day is full of only pleasant surprises! Today my surprise is a reader requested post topic. In this case, the reader is my older daughter-in-law. Every once in a while, she’ll ask me if I am going to write about X, Y, or Z. In this case, X was Colored Pants. I looked at her. “Colored pants?” I asked… “What about them?” “You know…” She replied. “Like why are they there? Who buys them? Why would I want to wear them? How would I wear them? And that kind of stuff!” It caught me off guard, in one of those don’t-know-what-you-don’t-know moments. Colored pants make as much sense to her as the inside of a computer makes to me. Let’s tackle colored pants!

Oddly, this topic is more challenging than in the past! For years, colored trousers were commonly seen on women. A few generations ago, skirts and dresses were expected for most occasions, and trousers were only for very casual wear. Since colorful is synonymous with more casual, women’s pants were colorful. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that blue jeans became the default woman’s bottom half cover for casual wear and colored pants disappeared from women’s wardrobes. To compound the color disappearance, as more women entered the workforce needing dress pants, manufacturers produced more trousers in classic “work” colors, like black, grey, navy, and taupe, and the colored trouser was all but lost. (Excepting those preppy colored and embroidered chinos!) Enter the colored denim trend a few years back, and women started reclaiming color! But it brought a whole host of questions like my lovely d-i-l asked me back in the introduction. If you are wondering like she is, then give these three ways to style a colored bottom a try…

Color + Neutral

The first, and easiest, way to wear color is to combine it with a neutral like denim, navy, black, grey, olive, beige, taupe, white, or ivory. You can combine any neutral with a color, but some will look better than others. If your color contrast is low, wear just one color with your neutral, and you won’t be overwhelmed. Wearing a warm color with a warm neutral (say, coral and olive) will look more harmonious than coral with black. Another tip to make that colored bottom more flattering is to repeat the color near your face.Make sure to respect your value contrast so that you wear the combo and it doesn’t wear you!

Go Monochrome

Monochrome doesn’t have to mean one color, it can mean tints and shades of the same color! Dark jeans and a chambray shirt are an example of a monochromatic look. Combining shades and tints of the same color, for example: wines and berries with pink, or teal and turquoise with seafoam, are a great way to add sophistication to a look without getting overwhelmed by a lot of “different” colors. Pink isn’t a different color than red. It’s a tint of red!

The proportions in this look above are not the most flattering, but it was a casual day for being untucked and easy! One thing I did to create harmony is to repeat the color (like I mentioned above and in this post about accessorizing) of my jeans in my bracelet and earrings. Not a match, mind you, just a blending of shades of cranberry and wine! You can better see the colors below…

Column of Color

Being petite, this is one of my faves. I can use all the extra length I can get, so wearing a column of color works well for me. Here you can see an inner column of color with a neutral topper.

Body Shape and Color

If you are self-conscious about your booty or thighs, you might want to avoid colored trousers. To be perfectly honest, that’s why the jeans above languished unworn in my storage box for about a year. I loved them when I picked them up for a song at my favorite consignment shop, but my 8 Shape morphs to A when I put on weight… So I was not loving how I felt in them, until I decided to apply my own style advice! Many A Shaped ladies and extra curvy X’s prefer to leave the colored bottoms to their narrower-hipped sisters, but if you love your booty, run with color! Colored bottoms are amazing for creating balance for V Shapes, and for drawing the attention away from the middle for O’s and H’s. (Just make sure not to tuck your top!). If you need to know more about body shape, check out this post for links to all eight of the female body shapes!

So, how about you? Do you have unanswered style questions you’d like to ask? Let me know! If it’s in my wheelhouse, I’ll give it a whirl. Did you learn anything new about colored trousers today? Do you wear colored jeans? Why or why not? Do let me know in the comments below! I love to hear from you, and am always open to your post suggestions…

Stylishly yours,