Holiday Style: Eclectic

Having a family has made me highly proficient in decorating with a eclectic style.  At one time in my life I had an entire set of perfectly matched dishes, cutlery and all the little accessories.  I had a perfectly matched dining room set and living room and bedroom furniture.  Then my children came along and, well, they broke things...lots of things.

Without the money to replace everything in order to keep it all perfectly matched, I tried to search for similar things only to find that most of what I had bought was no longer on trend for colors or design and impossible to match.  But, we needed things like dishes and couches, and couldn't wait for my style to come around again, so I began to deliberately mismatch.

Fortunately I wasn't reinventing the wheel here.  I labeled my style as eclectic and pressed on.  We now have not a single full set of anything.  Every chair around our table is a different color and design, so is every dish, and every piece of furniture.  I've found that as long as I stick to a color palette of  four colors or less though, everything is cohesive and yet all the different elements make it interesting.

These same principles applied to fashion also create some rather interesting looks.  For today's holiday outfit, I combined black, green, and gold, with a mix of shiny metallics, tulle, and satin, and a little star print mixed with geometric jewelry, for something cohesive and yet eye catching.

Plus, it gives me a chance to use things that I already own instead of having to go out and buy something new.  Also, and perhaps most importantly, it's just more fun to mix all these different things into one outfit.  There's a lot going on here that I just feel more exuberant wearing it, and isn't that what fashion and personal style are really all about?  I think so.

Shopping Info:  Tops from: SHEIN, Skirt from ChicWish, Gold heels from Thredup