How To: Not Wear Black - Part 1

You will have heard many a Trinny or Susannah bleat on about black not suiting everyone, don't wear black with colour, black is boring, black makes you look dull, and so on. While many of these statements may be true it can be very difficult to avoid wearing black.

For most people, black is a convenient staple in our wardrobes and we tend to base our outfits around it, or indeed create an entire outfit of black, black and more black. Add to that the significant amount of black that is available in stores and not wearing black becomes a huge challenge.

A way to not wear black is to find yourself a new neutral to base your wardrobe around. I've broken neutrals into four different groups:

• brown - chocolate, tan, beige
• navy - all the dark blues
• grey - from light grey right through to charcoal
• nude - white, off white/ivory, stone

Here's an example of basic outfits you might wear to work from each neutral group. (Click on the pictures to make them bigger.)

Non-black neutrals by StyleVignettes

You can add to the items in each outfit to create a capsule wardrobe based on your new neutral. For example, to the grey neutral outfit I have added other items in charcoal, blue, magenta and yellow to create a 5 day work capsule.

Take these pieces.......

Grey neutral work capsule by StyleVignettes

Combine to make 5 different outfits!

Grey Neutral Capsule by StyleVignettes

You can wear a vast array of colours with your grey neutral pieces, softer pinks, blues and yellows, orange, green, purple, teal, the list goes on! I've chosen bright fun colours here as I like the contrast against the classic corporate wardrobe.

Stay tuned for Part 2 where I'll show you how to use brown, navy and nude neutrals to create a 5 day capsule wardrobe without wearing any black.