The Boffism Guide to Bright Shoes

Dear Readers,

I'm officially over Winter. No coat is going to change my mind. I can't wait to switch wardrobes - even though I'm going to be shocked by the number of pieces I no longer love in my Spring/Summer wardrobe - and to try on some bright colours.

Since I don't own a heater, I thought of warming my room by buying a pair of blinding, bright shoes. Yes, that's the excuse I used to convince myself to buy them. There's no use denying that I'm more of a neutrals kind of girl, but this is the season of traffic-stopping colours so I had to take action.

Many encounter one problem when buying bright coloured shoes, the question, 'What should I wear these with?'. The obvious answer, 'Neutrals' or 'Black'. Yes, completely true. You can't really go wrong with either of those. Yet, today I want to encourage you to mix your statement colour shoes with another block of colour.

Readers, meet the colour wheel. 

Save it to your computer. Learn it by heart. Tattoo it on wrist. Most of all, use it. The colour wheel illustrates the main colours and their different shades and can be used to identify contrasting colours. As a rule of thumb, in order to create a good, yet not unsightly, contrast, we should choose to pair two colours from opposing sides of the wheel. Say, for instance, green and red, yellow and purple and even turquoise and orange. 

The colour wheel is the answer to all these bright shoe dilemmas. Find your shoe colour on the colour wheel, then choose something from the opposite side of the wheel. Easy! Here are some examples I created on Polyvore.

1. Coral and Turquoise





Technically, coral is a muted orange. Well, at least it is in my world. In this set, I paired a pair of chunky turquoise heels with a gorgeous, floaty coral shirt. Gold chokers are so in and they match coral so nicely so I thought of including one as well. Since the look has quite a lot of colour already, I made sure to tone down the rest with a white blazer and a nude coloured envelope clutch. I can see myself wearing this look to brunch!











2. Yellow and Purple





I still haven't bought myself a nice fitting skater dress. I truly need to invest in more dresses. Don't these purple shoes look great with yellow? This is probably a combination that many of us would ignore, but the colour wheel indicates that this pairing is written in the stars. I'd keep the rest simple because both colours are amongst the brightest of the brights, so nude lips and black accessories it is!

3. Orange and Electric Blue






I confess, my next pair of bright shoes are probably going to be electric blue. Unfortunately, I can't really pull off orange so I'm going to have to think of something else to wear with them. But look at this combination, doesn't it just scream retro in your face? I swear it did in mine. Also, dying to do something crazy with my hair. Yes, something similar to that afro.

Just in case you were wondering what my bright coloured shoes look like, visit my Facebook Page. There's a photo of them there, a photo that's too low quality for me to upload on this blog. I have standards, strict ones. I'll post good pictures of them tomorrow, I hope!

-B