Turquoise

As a designer, I confess an inordinate love of monochromatic color schemes. This tendency causes me continual conflict with my clients, who are always requesting "more colors" in my designs. More colors? Why? That's what shades are for!

Fortunately, as an Unfashionista, I can do whatever I want, including building an entire outfit in shades of turquoise.

I started with a dark turquoise cami top I bought on a vacation a few years ago at 5 for 10$ (This shopping trip remains the source of the majority of my tank top collection today). For an "occasion," I would wear this strappy top with a strapless bra to avoid the double-strap look. But for everyday wear, I allow my bra straps to shine out.

I paired the top with the dip-dyed (now the favored term is ombré) turquoise skirt (the second-to-last hippie skirt I bought before getting tired of them).

So now I'm wearing three shades of turquoise (two with a gradation between them), but I'm not done yet!

I have a matched set of old turquoise jewelry I acquired in New Mexico when I was just a youngun. I never would spend my hard-earned cash on that sort of thing today, so thank goodness I was less thrifty back then....Of course, it could have been my parents' money that paid for the jewelry – I don't remember – but either way, I'm glad I have it. The bracelet particularly is one of my favorite pieces of jewelry, but I hardly ever have a chance to wear it. It has silver beads and turquoise beads, and best of all, birds! And if you zoom in to the picture, you can almost see it clearly!

To complete the look, I wore my ubiquitous black flip-flops (basically, what I wear when I don't have any footwear that actually matches my clothes). But they were mainly just to cover my feet when going out in public. Obviously this outfit is best suited for running barefoot on the beach!