For the fourth day of the challenge, I chose the drinking pheasant (#4).

[Challenge info and guidelines posted here.]

Initially I was drawn to the idea of reflection; I'd planned on doing a mirrored plaid outfit (plaid on top, plaid on bottom), but when I put the outfit on it felt too wintery so I'll shelf that idea and return to it later in the season. Instead I looked at the mix of color and pattern, and played with the idea of layered textures to represent the bird's dense feathers.

While I don't wear a lot of brown I do enjoy wearing soft muted shades particularly with cream and/or rust. I didn't focus too heavily on representing the tones faithfully, rather went for a similar overall "color feel". Also painted my nails a delicate gold (#3). It's actually sheer with little gold flecks, so at some angles/in some lights it just looks like plain shiny nails while at other angles/in other lights it's a very glittery soft gold.

For pattern I chose a peacock feather print blouse, textured tights that evoke feathers or an extremely simplified bird silhouette, and added my leo clutch as a nod to the somewhat dotty pattern on the pheasant's back.

As for texture, that ended up being my favorite part -- Every piece in this outfit has a different texture: the blouse is a sheer silk, cardigan a fine-yet-meshy knit, shorts are a soft woven tencel, boots a ruched faux leather; the clutch is pony hair, earrings hammered metal, sunnies are resin, and of course the tights are an open-weave crochet knit. (Whew!) Not sure if I've managed to put together quite so many different textures in a single outfit before, even one as heavily layered as this, but I really like the depth it creates. (And back to crazy 80s hair, yay!)

Comments, critiques, thoughts and questions welcome!