Pastels with a Twist

If you haven’t noticed, purple is EVERYWHERE this year. And specifically, everywhere this Fall/winter season. Purple?! In the Fall?? Great, one of my least favorite colors taking over my favorite season.

But as with most trends that I WANT to push away, I have found myself gravitating towards this color more than I thought I would. Luckily it isn’t just a ‘true’ purple tone that we are seeing everywhere, it is a much more pastel/muted tone. I like to describe it as a lovely dusty lilac…instead of purple haha.

When I see a trend popping up I really try to figure out the “why” behind it. Being that purple made absolutely no sense to me as a fall color, it made me start looking around at nature for inspiration (shocker, I know). It was just before Halloween and I started seeing all these little purple wildflower/weeds popping up on the sides of the road. Then the lavender bushes in all my neighbors’ yards starting exploding with that same lovely dusty lilac tone. Whatttttt?! Why have I never associated this color and time of year when it seemed to be all around me? 

Then I started noticing all the other pastels. The throwback to the 90’s mint green that is everywhere on runways and designer monochromatic looks- Russian olive trees! Then there is the slew of yellow pastels being used this fall- it wasn’t hard finding that tone in all the drying grass and wheat in the fields and parks. And VIOLA- fall pastels make sense to me! 

Honestly…I have still been having a hard time styling fall pastels within my own day to day wear. Some of my absolute favorite colors are your classic fall tones: rusty orange, olive green, dark maroon, tans and linen white…it has been challenging to style looks that -feel- like fall but somehow still look springtime to my heart! I am working on it though- I now have more purple in my wardrobe than ever before…so here is to trying new things and using nature as the ultimate inspiration. Happy fall dressing!

A little about this shoot:

If you can’t tell by the moody undertone in these images (especially as we got to the tall grass location)…night came up on us FAST! We were scrambling to get in what we wanted before the sun totally set on us. Ahhhhh thank you winter! It seems like each year I forget just how much darkness we have to surround ourselves with if we don’t get things done right smack dab in the middle of the day. Anyways- the shoot was fairly straight forward, a car full of fun planned outfits and an amazing model who was up for anything.

Wardrobe is a mix of new/old. Gathered from places like Namedroppers, Savers Thrift, Goodwill and Estate sales. Mint green necklaces are African glass beads. So heavy and SO incredibly beautiful. The entire yellow outfit is linen, so perfect for fall.

Gear used: Hasselblad 501, Pentax 645, various 35mm cameras. All kodak film (mainly portra 160).

Film developed by Flea Bones Film Lab

Wardrobe styling and art direction by Miesh Clothing 

Model: Kassidy Tingey