How to make slacks and a button-down fun

Ahh, the button-down shirt and pair of slacks! It's the signature look of office workers everywhere. It's tried and true, always appropriate, but...rarely is it interesting.

Still, if you are consigned to a business casual dress code, there's no reason you have to be resigned to it! There are many things you can do to spice up your workaday clothes, and today I'm exploring a few of them: a cheery color palette, exciting accessories, and a secret theme!

The basis of this outfit is a white button-down blouse and a pair of sage green pants so desaturated they could almost pass for grey. Dull, dull, dull! If this was all I wore to work, I'd cry. And then I'd die of boredom.

Fortunately, the shirt is sleeveless, which means it practically requires something to be worn over it, which means I get an opportunity to play with a cheery color palette! In a particularly formal office, you might go with a blazer, but for most workplaces, a sweater will be sufficient. For my purposes today, I wore a tie-front cardigan in absinthe-green (Pro Tip: When struggling against boredom with your outfit, conjure up fun associations by thinking of the colors in terms of alcoholic drinks!). The green sweater was a great complement to the slightly green pants, so I decided to carry on the tradition with olive green shoes.

Now, it is time to turn our attention towards exciting accessories! While your pants-and-a-shirt outfit is conservative by nature, there are no such limitations on the kind of ornaments you can throw on top. Scarves, jewelry, hair accessories, belts—all of these things and more can be used to add a little oomph to your appearance, and with such a plain backdrop as your clothes, you can afford to make these accessories over-the-top.

For this outfit, the lines of my cardigan and blouse lent themselves well to a long necklace. I searched in vain for the perfect pendant, when I remembered I have this tiered heart necklace that perfectly coordinated with the other greens in the ensemble! At this point, I was wearing so much green that it wouldn't have been a bad thing to pick a necklace in a contrasting hue, but there was a particular reason that the heart necklace was the best choice.

And what was that reason? Why, none other than the secret theme! This is the final way you can have a little fun with fashion while still wearing your boring cubicle uniform.  

 

On my sweater, the open knit forms little heart-shaped holes running in rows down the surface, so my theme had to be hearts. The little holes are easy to overlook, but that's what makes the theme a secret! Sure, it's pretty obvious when I'm wearing both a heart necklace and matching earrings, but still...even a blatant theme becomes more fun when there's a little reward for the observant hidden elsewhere in the outfit. There's no reason that a theme needs to be as literal as a graphic motif. You could choose something more subtle, like "vertical ribbing," or a theme that only has meaning to you...like clothes you got on vacation, or gifts from someone you love.

Whatever you choose, building your outfit with some guiding principles can make it a little more gratifying to wear...even when, to a casual observer, it only looks like slacks and a button-down.