? Help with bookending. - YouLookFab Forum

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? Help with bookending.

jussie

Veteran

Hi there! Me again. Always on a quest for the perfect wardrobe..... Angie and a lot of the fabbers are very into bookending shoes with hair color. My problem is, my hair contains a variety of shades, there’s some platinum bits, some silver hairs and quite a bit of cream, and some warmer almost bronzey colours..... so: do I go for beige, taupe, silver, light grey, warm tan, camel.... white? Or even mustard? There are so many variations out there and I’m not sure which would be best.
The other option is to go with my eye colour and choose a mid blue. This would work for me as I love blue and would enjoy wearing blue shoes.
Or does the exactness of it not matter so much?
Any advice is appreciated! Thanks so much. I’ve attached a pic of my hair up close in natural light to help....

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Dressing

19 replies

Latest reply was from jussie

Jessikams

(website)

Veteran

I think this is something you can really play with. Gather all your light colored shoes and try them out to see which works best for bookending! I bet the shoe you pick might even influence how your hair looks— lighter shoes might make your hair “read” as lighter.

Katerina

Veteran

Jussie, you have such beautiful hair! As for the bookending, I am not an expert, but one option might be gold metallic shoes, like Angie’s Chelsea boots. I think cream would be also nice.

Toban

Veteran

Any of those! Bookending doesn’t have to be restricted to a single color. And blue sounds great. In my opinion, this concept is about echoing something in your hair (or eyes).

Brooklyn

Veteran

I think the idea is to choose something that tones in with your hair colour, or some part of it. It doesn’t have to be a match. And what Toban said.

cindysmith

Veteran

It wouldn't have to be an exact match. Any lighter colored shoe would read as bookending to my eyes. Cream, blush, gold/champagne, even silver/platinum. A light tan color would even look like bookends if the pants were dark enough.

For my sister's wedding, Angie encouraged me to go with silver shoes to bookend my hair. For the record, my hair has white/silver, platinum blonde, and a solitary streak of pepper/black in front; the back has some silver and quite a bit of dirty blonde. Most all of us have lots of subtle color variations in our hair; so my understanding is that bookending is more about matching tone than an exact color match. Someone with dark hair (brown, auburn, black, etc) could do a dark shoe with a lighter outfit to achieve that bookending effect.

krishnidoux

Veteran

I agree, your hair is beautiful. And it is in my opinion a great hunch to want to bookend it, it will have a big impact. The many shades in your hair only open up possibilities.
You have to determine if your hair is more cold-tone or warm-tone overall. I know that some could immediately classify it as cool, but it's not that obvious. You can go to a shoe store and try silver footwear, then taupe footwear, and decide which looks best. Or white vs cream.

Janet

(website)

Veteran

You have many options — it doesn’t need to be too matchy to be effective. I think you actually have the best of all worlds as it sounds like you have some cooler and warmer tones in your hair and could easily play with silver or gold tone metallics, light greys or tans, etc.

(I had on an outfit yesterday afternoon with a black tee and light colored, pinstriped pants — I put on light metallic sandals and felt off balance until I switched them out for black sandals instead. Explains why nearly all my shoes are dark! The power of bookending...)

LaPed

Veteran

I love the bookending concept because it's about overall visual impact and not reliant on finding an exact match. I have very dark brown hair and find that black, burgundy, and navy footwear all bookend well -- I don't even have any brown shoes (partly because espresso/chocolate has been so scarce in retail for quite a few years, and partly because I swore off adding anymore brown to my wardrobe as my maternity clothes had a fair bit of brown and I was sick of it!).

I think you could add footwear in any shade of blush, tan, taupe, grey, or light metallic that strikes your fancy and any of them would work. Of course, for warm-weather shoes it's worth taking into account how the colour reads against your skin as well -- that might help you narrow down your options.

Anonymous

I'm glad you wrote this. When I was reading the post about Angie's best advice, I was surprised at the number of YLF Members that mentioned bookending. I was convinced I had probably missed some major fashion opportunity and meant to follow up on it. You did that for me.

Your hair color is lovely. I think I agree with Toban and others when they speak to tone or repetition rather than exactly matches, but I am learning along with you.

Liz

Veteran

I just go in broad terms: light shoes (gray, taupe, blush, etc.) instead of dark (black, navy). Just that one switch makes a huge difference, as Janet says, in bringing a feeling of balance into an outfit. I used to feel very "off" and bottom-heavy when I'd wear a light-colored top, dark pants, and black shoes. Now I know why: The top half of me (hair, skin, clothing) was light, and the bottom half (pants and shoes) were very dark. There was no cohesion. When I switch to light shoes, I bring some cohesion back.

Anonymous

Echoing what Liz said. The color should somewhat tie in with your hair as viewed from several feet away, but does not need to be an exact match. Any general light color would be better than a dark one for you.

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

Tans, cream, cognac, golds and rose gold footwear.

texstyle

(website)

Veteran

Angie already has you sorted!

SarahD8

Veteran

Jussie my hair is similar to yours. I was never much into the bookending concept as it seemed very limiting. But then I realized that I wear a LOT of tan and cognac shoes (while not having any brown elsewhere in my wardrobe), and in fact they act as subtle bookending. For me I think it’s especially good because there are warm tones in my hair but my skin tone is relatively cool (again, I think your coloring is similar) — so getting a warm tone in my outfit, but away from my face, is very effective. The cognac is particularly good when my hair is up, as that exposes more of the darker tones.

Sal

Veteran

I agree with all the others. I am a darker blonde then you but also multicoloured - I find camel, pewter, gold, silver, cognac and tan all work.

You can also mix it up - Janet wears silver, Angie wears ink blue and I wear white and black.

It will be fun to see what works!!

Suz

(website)

Veteran

Your hair is so pretty, Jussie!

And Angie has you sorted. I'll also add -- consider leopard print. It's a fantastic bookend colour for blondes that also allows you to tie in darker colours, which can be more difficult when you are fair. When my hair was blonde, I adored leopard print shoes! Now that my hair is silver/ grey they will only work if they are very cool toned or snow leopard.

When I had dark blonde hair (darker than yours, mixed tones but a cool undertone) I bookended with leopard print, yellows, platinum golds, and taupe. With silver/ grey I bookend with grey, silver, snake print, pewter, white and black and white print/ two-tone.

jussie

Veteran

Jessikams, Tobin, Katerina, Bijou, Angie, Cindysmith, Janet, Sal, Sarahd8, Joy, Liz, Sterling, Suz, La Ped: thanks to all our you for coming to my rescue! What a brilliant forum this is. I appreciate all the suggestions and stories of people’s bookending discoveries. The main thing I take from it is 1) an exact match isn’t nescessary and 2) my hair colour is veering more warm, so probably white and silver are going to be less effective for bookending. I’ll try cream or gold I think. Or a light tan.
SarahD8: I totally agree I have the same thing as you, warm blonde tones in the hair but a cool undertone in the skin. This has been causing me much confusion. Also my eyebrows are almost black. And my eyes are very cold almost grey. But your advice sounds very sensible- include a warm colour in the outfit but keep it away from the face.....

Jessikams

(website)

Veteran

I’ve also been experimenting with bookending using accessories on both ends. White shoes, big white earrings. Pink shoes, pink scarf. That kind of thing. As others have said, it really works to improve cohesion of outfit.

I guess in its simplest form, the idea is just to echo or repeat colors within an outfit. I’m still figuring this out!

jussie

Veteran

Jessikams: yep I totally am on board with that definition too. Today for example: grey pants, grey wool sweater vest + blue scarf, blue earrings and blue sweater. The trick is to vary things enough that it doesn’t look repetitive or overly matchy..... experimenting sure is fun though.