Pattern Forming

Earlier in the season I had an inspiration and a dilemma: I wasn't feeling any of the clothes I've acquired for the past several years, as I was ready for something (relatively, to me) new. I was over all the edgy Rick Owens and draped/goth ninja looks that lost their edge because mainstream designers seemed to have adopted them more than ever, but I was feeling a serious mix of patterns: plaids with fair isle with leopard prints with photo prints... which was kind of distressing because I had none of those pieces. So I spent the entire season building a new wardrobe, but as cheaply as possible. This was one of the outfits that came together after I had some key pieces mixed in with things I never got the nerve to get rid of: a black fair isle zip cardi over a shadow plaid flannel shirt over blackwatch tartan pants over sequined tiger-print Converse high tops. It kinda just all works because all the patterns just cancel each other out. But I also felt a little strange because no one else is doing what I'm doing, but I kinda just wanted to go there. And now I look at many of the pre-fall collections starting to come up for 2011, and pattern-over-pattern mixes are everywhere.