I can be a rainbow

Usually the first day of a new dye job, I wear an outfit specifically to highlight my hair. But, the outfit I planned for my first day with this green-yellow gradient was such a disaster that I scuttled home in shame and spent the next few days hiding behind dark neutrals. We all love a good disaster story, so naturally I'll tell you how it went down: I wore a yellow T-shirt to match the bottom half of my hair and an aqua cardigan to complement the top. I wore pink shoes to make it a real explosion of spring colors. Then I forgot the cardigan at home, and had to spend the whole day skulking around in my biking hoodie, which now has had the patches removed and is nothing more than a grungy brown jacket with some white flecks near the top. I felt hideous.

After a few days to regroup (and let the intensity of the hair color settle a bit), I was ready to try again. This time I decided to continue the gradient of my hair down the entire length of my body. Green hair fades to yellow, which transitions to some gold-hued earrings, which just brush the collar of my orange shirt, which tops my red pants, all worn over some maroon shoes. I could have gone with brighter purple shoes, but I already felt like a striped flag, so I decided to tone it down. This way, if you ignore the color of my hair, my clothing choices look like nothing more than one of those tonal color schemes I love so much—and not a silly, overly thought-out rainbow.

But just between you and me, this outfit really is a silly overly thought-out rainbow, and it needs to be complete! The one color that was missing from the look is blue, so I integrated that into my ensemble in a subtle way...and coincidentally, effected the return of an accessory I don't think I've worn in the last 18 years: my high school class ring!

There's just one more topic of discussion regarding this outfit, and that's the pants. These pants are (finally!) the last of all the red things I had queued up to wear. I got them at Swap.com, and I had hoped for a crimson pair to replace my ever-fading red jeans. These were more of a brick red – and an undesired velvet texture to boot! – but I kept them because I'd paid so little for them. (So you see how red pants keep piling up in my collection!)

They were also really unflattering in a baggy, shapeless way. I made a few attempts at slimming them down, but it didn't result in improvement, so in the end I just hemmed them to achieve a more contemporary above-the-ankle fit and called it a day. Lately it seems like shapeless trousers are a fairly fashionable option, but I don't feel like I pull it off, so I doubt these pants will stay part of my wardrobe for long.