I have been trying to do more SYC/outfit creation to hone in on what is working, what things were mistakes, what to Keep/Toss/Hold.

I’ve been seeing the slice-of-white-T-with-pullover look for awhile. Under my sweaters I usually wear underlayers like tanks, camis, underlayer tees with scoop necks to not show, Heattech. I had a small gathering to attend later that day so was playing with WTW. Well, So I got out my white summer T’s ( white not best face color,? but useful in summer, often with LS shirt or linen jacket).
Well, I tried them all with the most likely sweaters & buttoned cardi for the look. and could not get the necklines to work at all. Instead I wore buttoned taupe cardi over sleeveless blue collared shirt and was quite happy with it.
Upon arrival at the hostess’ home, both she AND the other guest were wearing, yep, slice of white T collar.

A day later I tried the thing of wearing T’s backwards. Not gonna do the fashion tape thing. Nothing worked due to cuts, necklines, fullness of T. And then even when I lined things up for a moment, I realized, this is not even what I want to look like. Maybe even the opposite. I then was getting ready to go another place & I layered buttoned cardi over again, a black sleeveless silk collared blouse with small, sharp point collar, which I’ve worn with pullovers before. Really liked that look for me. Experiment over, no harm done.

I also have 2 short-ish sweaters from last year from Anthro-one gray and one a berry color , thinking I would use both as they represent a good neutral and good medium- rich color. But I was tending to avoid the berry with my dark pants & dark skirts, even one that had a bit of berry in a print. I was feeling bad about having bought 2.
Then I just happened to be watching a fashion video clip in which the stylist was also trying a brighter color top with her dark jeans , not liking it, so switch to lightest jeans and voilà, looked much better.
I own exactly 1 pair of wideleg jeans , from ON in a light blue wash ( not the lightest washed- out, but definitely light blue) , because for some reason that color fit better than the darker washes I would usually buy- no idea why. And they’re thick denim & so not really for summer here. So berry + light blue + my Brooks sneakers in a gray- white with blue and berry accent marks and voilà, fresh- looking winter outfit I had not before considered. And of course it translates to other combos- wearing burgundy or charcoal winter tops. This is not a new idea of course, that brights + black or navy can look either kinda dated, or at least just … dark.