Today I wore some mauve trousers. I had the toughest time trying to make them pop. If you have seen anything of my posts in the past you know that I love color. I love the tension and interplay between them. Imagine shades of sage with a beautiful cherry red – now that’s tension. Just because I love color doesn’t always mean that I need vivid color, hence my attraction to these mauve trousers.

When I think of what to wear with mauve my mind goes immediately to burgundy, shades of brown, purple, wine, plum, pink, cream, and gray. Black I feel sucks the delicate amorphous nature out of the color – some how it looks like a nasty sick looking pink next to black. However this highlights the “problem” with mauve. It’s amorphous. Next to brown it looks pink, next to gray it looks rosy, next to pink it looks purple, next to purple it looks pink. If you can’t nail down the color how can you make it pop with out the pop looking harsh or contrived? By the way, mauve with shades of red or orange look harsh to me.

I did a Google search to determine exactly what other people have done with mauve in the past. I did not care if the image was a shoe, a pillow, or an entire outfit. My internal Rolodex was stuck on dusty gray-toned muddy colors, neutrals, or purple – BORING!

I found a picture of a darling little matchbox it had minty sage green woven in the floral Asian pattern. How fresh is that? I scrolled down a little further and found a shoe in chocolate, teal, and mauve. How cute! By this time I am itching to get to my closet. My favorite combinations:

Mauve, wine, and mint green
Mauve, silver-gray, and periwinkle
Mauve, navy (almost black) and lavender
I ended up wearing: Mauve, blush pink and jewel-toned teal – very cute.

What’s your favorite Mauve color combination?

BTW -- I apologize for the lack of make up.