In the photo above we find a simple, yet fun spring outfit. This light khaki cable knit sweater doesn't work with khaki chinos, but it works wonderfully with essentially any other color chino. It is a nice neutral piece that can go with almost (not yellow) any bold pant. It is wonderfully flexible in the spring and summer. I am using this decidedly neutral sweater in this outfit to break up the boldness of the pink on green. These pants are a light, pale, chalky green. The shirt is a pink small windowpane, OCBD. If I take the sweater off the pink on green is bold, in your face and bright. The contrast is extreme and beautiful. It is daring and is unabashedly preppy. And although I do love pink and green and I do love bold, bright and fun spring and summer combinations, I am not always in the mood for bolder, the better. Sometimes, we want to bring it down a few notches.
When you cover up the bulk of the pink with this neutral cable knit, predictably, the boldness is muted and we are left with hints of pink on the cuff and collar. This is much more tolerable if you are going for a more restrained look. These light hints are exactly what I was going for today. I wanted to feel a bit more spring and a bit more bright than just a plain white, but I didn't want my look to be fully in your face with large spaces of pink and green. I also wanted to accentuate the casual element so I went with this patterned pink shirt, rather than a plain pink. The small windowpane automatically lessens the formality. The neutral cable knit allows me to pair the pink and green as a spring homage in a more subtle way while small windowpane peeking out at the cuffs and collar give just the slightest push toward the informal in the smallest way.
A perfect, casual spring outfit.