Styling a Black and White Outfit With a Pop of Color

Oddlilbean
by Oddlilbean
Easy

I have mentioned before (at least on my Instagram) that I love myself a little black dress, When ever I stumble across one at Goodwill, I hold quite the internal debate trying to talk myself out of buying it despite the five already hanging in my closet. But this one has a flare skirt. But this one has sequins. But look at the detailed design stitching on this one. And so on. My point this little rambling introduction is just to illustrate that if I'm that much of a sucker for a black dress, I'm an even bigger sucker for a black and white dress. Or really, just any black and white styled outfit in general. There's something about the combination I find very effortless chic looking. That being said, I'm also a huge lover of bright colors as I've show in past posts, and so I often like to add a small pop of color when styling a (mostly) black and white outfit. Below I'm just going to show some examples on how I do this to possibly provide some style inspiration!


Naturally, the easiest way to add a pop of color to a black and white outfit/dress is with accessories like jewelry. With this outfit, I went all out with straight-up rainbow jewelry (I am an elementary art teacher after all, I have an image to maintain), but you can easily do this any jewelry color combination. That's the beautiful ting about black and white! They go with everything!


The dress and shoes came from Goodwill, the earrings are Betsey Johnson from Marshalls, and the necklace is from a rock store in Hilton Head I visited forever ago when I was 10, so I don't remember specifics.

Here is a more subtle way to adding a bit of color by wearing a plum, almost leaning more toward purple, lipstick. The color choice is pretty tame compared to the all-out rainbow jewelry from the previous outfit, but you can always do the same with a brighter and more adventurous lipstick color. Personally, I feel as though this approach also adds a bit of drama to the outfit, especially when it's a darker shade of lipstick.


The dress is another Goodwill find, the shoes are Steve Madden from DSW, the tights are from Target (which they still currently have in stock), and the earrings were a gift and bought from a local artist in Greensboro (though I can reach out and get more details if anyone is interested).

This pop of color is a very similar approach as the first outfit. Just with a hat! Sort of. I mean, yes, I did add a pop of color with a green hat, but what is difficult to tell in the photo is that I also added matching dark green eyeliner to pull it together. I should have taken a close-up photo like the first two, but hindsight is 20/20, so unfortunately you'll just have to take my word for it. So, really, this outfit is more like combining both of the two previous approaches together and less of a carbon-copy method of the first.

This one is not necessarily adding a pop of color but is instead substituting the white in the outfit for an off-white/close-to-white-but-not-really color. Specifically, it's an extremely light pink, bordering on tan color. So, yes, this is very loosely following the theme of this post, but the point is it is just another way you can add some subtle color to an outfit, especially if you are someone who does not enjoy a lot of adventurous or bright colors in your closet.


The dress is a Marshalls purchase from years ago, the jacket and boots are vintage, and the tights are from Target.

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Oddlilbean
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