Tiger, Tiger, colored bright

Today's outfit (which is actually last Friday's outfit—the 3-day weekend totally ran away from me!) is a study in second chances.

I never thought I was into big-cat motifs—housecats, yes, but lions and tigers and pumas, no way! That is, until this tiger shirt changed my mind for me. There was something about the expression on the tigers' faces – is it just the hint of a smirk? – that made them seem less predatory and more like something I'd want to wear on my clothing.

The second mental hurdle I had to step over was my aversion to garish faux-primitive geometric patterns. Yes, that's a mouthful of a thing to be averse to, but it's a pretty recognizable design style. The particular pattern on this shirt bears elements of the Navajo-inspired prints that were all over the place around 2012, and a bit of that splashy late-80's-early-90's style with lots of triangles and black inked textures. You don't really need to know what I'm talking about (and even I am relying on some pretty vague memories, so I might not know what I'm talking about myself!), but the point is that I'm not crazy about the colorful designs superimposed on the tigers on this shirt. However, because it's so rare that I actually find a cat-themed shirt that's appropriate for work, I was willing to overlook that minor downside.

The last element of this ensemble that prompted a rethinking of my preferences was the shoes. As you recall, I've had these green sandals since summer of 2016, and I've been thinking it's about time to retire them. Having a kelly green summer shoe is great and all, but the pink and black beads frequently contradict my outfit's color scheme. Yet today, they were the perfect match for the shirt, whose predominant colors just happened to be kelly green, pink, and black! I guess you never know when an oddly colored shoe will come in handy.

To complete the outfit, I wore khaki cropped pants and gold hoop earrings, which I thought were a nice complement to the triangular gold plates on the collar of the shirt. While we're on the subject, let's take a moment to appreciate just how unique this shirt really is. A collar with gold plates sewn to the tips of it, plus huge tiger faces, superimposed on flashy green-and-pink geometric designs? While the individual design elements may not have been quite my style, when taken as its avant-garde whole, this shirt is undeniably Unfashionistic! I'm glad I took the plunge and sacrificed 3 dollars to buy it (still new with tags!) from Swap.com!