Fall Essentials: Take Two

Greetings Gentle Readers,

It's time for Part II of our "Fall Essentials" guidelines... In part one we talked about a garment, accessory, and color. We're going to stray just slightly from that in this installment, discussing, a garment, fabric texture and color, but we hope the essentials discussed here serve you as well this fall as they have us... Without further ado...

1. Tweed: this classic fabric lends itself to colder months, and because of its mostly earth-tone coloring, specifically to fall. Tweed is warm, durable, and easy to care for. Look for classic wardrobe staples in tweed; i.e. vests (like pictured) blazers, and trousers. Ladies you may also be able to find fantastic suiting in tweed. We don't recommend that gents try the all tweed look. Break up your tweed with other textures. A particularly stylish option is to mix a "rough" texture like tweed with something smooth &soft, like silk, leather, or cashmere. Tweed's color is usually in the dusty brown/heather grey tone, and is achieved through the weaving of the different tones of yarn. Keeping that in mind, accessorize and coordinate tweed with grey and brown tones and colors that contrast with them i.e. pale pinks, yellows, lavenders, any any other hues with grey undertones. If a contrast is what you have in mind, try deep tones and saturated colors, like an eggplant purple, kelly green, or sapphire blue.

2. Grey Trousers: A grey trouser is a excellent year 'round, but is particularly useful in fall also. As an alternative (for both genders) to jeans for evenings out, or for dressier occasions when you'd like to try something other than typical black pants, or even at the office, grey trousers provide an air of sophistication and style that black can sometimes fail to convey. Because they AREN'T black, brown, or navy, grey trousers often seem like an unexpected choice. Grey, however, is a great neutral that is easy to pair with almost any other color; be they other cool tones like blues and most lighter shades and pastels, or warm hues like orange, red, and saturated richer jewel tones. As with all trousers make sure that your grey slacks fit as best they can and find cuts that are most versatile (that way, you get more bang for your buck). Some classic and timeless cuts are a full trouser (like the one pictured) and a slim fit, which contours more to the natural shape of the leg, as opposed to being straight down like a full trouser.

3. Pale Pink: (and other pastels) While most people think of pastels as strictly spring and summer tones, we think of them as quite the opposite. As the weather cools, sometimes we like our colors to cool as well. Summer is known for it's bright colors and patterns, and fall is typically known for warm earth tones, but sticking to norms does not a stylish person make. Cooling down your hues in the fall can be a particularly stylish move. A tip to effectively pulling this off is to use a color whose undertones are similar to that of your other pieces. For example, every garment worn in the featured photo has a grey undertone, thus making them all effectively complement each other. Also, you want to limit the use of cool tones to one or two garments. The desired look is not Easter Egg Chic. You can use cool tones in your accessories instead of garments as well; scarves and neckties are an excellent way to put this technique to use. The aforementioned rules apply to the accessories as well.

That brings to a close this installment of the Fall Essentials. We hope this post has inspired you to go into your wardrobes and pull out a few things and try them in different ways. We'll see you again before you know it with the next installment. Until then, we remain...

Stylishly yours,
Sartorially Savvy

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