Fall’s big trend of combining rustic patterns and textures evokes what we love most about the good old days of American life. Lucky for all of us, vintage Americana lives on with plaids, checks and tweeds, all mixed up and worn together. It’s as close to Norman Rockwell’s ideal as we’ll ever get, so this season we encourage you to mix and match your iconic patterns. Find out how after the jump.
Start with the strongest pattern you plan to put on — like a plaid shirt -- and build your outfit from there. The trick to mixing is to stick with no more than two competing patterns. Two small patterns – a herringbone and a houndstooth, for example – will get lost when paired together, so make sure to vary the scales to avoid looking like you’re wearing wallpaper. Put a small-scale pattern like herringbone with a larger-scale plaid or check – a Glen plaid, oversized gingham or buffalo check. And to make sure your colors are complementary, pick one of the base colors in the plaid as the reference point for the rest of your color elements. (Here, we took the green stripe in the plaid and added a rugby with a complementary green.)
And then just layer up! A stripped rugby can be worn over or under one of your go-to plaids for a casual look. To dress it up, pair holiday tartans with a tweed herringbone jacket or a tweed vest with a buffalo check shirt. Can anyone say Saturday Evening Post?
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