How to Rock Plaid Pants (And A Blogging Milestone)

So being my preoccupied self yesterday, I completely forgot my computer at school because it was charging in the corner of one of my classes. Woops! And of course, I didn’t realize it until it was too late to grab it. I’m crossing my fingers that when I get to school today my laptop will be safe. So what does this mean for all of you? Not much; I was able to use a different computer to create this post. BUT my laptop has my master Excel spreadsheet that tells me where an article of clothing was last seen on the blog, and since I refuse to use Google Docs or save stuff to the Cloud, I now am spreadsheet-less. So really, that was just a long way of saying that there won’t be “last seen here” labels at the bottom of the post. I will, however, update this post later with that information (assuming my laptop survived the night!).

Ok, onto the outfit! Today I’m sharing some tips for styling plaid pants (most of them work for any printed pants). I realize that plaid pants are not an overly popular piece in women’s closets, but nonetheless, I thought this post might help someone. I am a huge fan of bold/printed pants. I’ve had these plaid ones for a few years but I usually style them the same two ways. So I’m hoping this post will help me as well to break out of my style comfort zone with these crazy pants. I wore this outfit to school, but it’s a comfy weekend outfit for running errands or just hanging with friends. Also, today marks the 100th post published on Graceful Rags! Woohoo! Exciting stuff. I’m not one to get all gooey about this sort of thing, but thank you to all of you who have been following along on this blogging journey. 🙂

Pair with neutrals. Since red plaid pants are pretty bold as it is and the color covers a lot of surface area, you probably want to stick to neutral colors for the rest of your outfit. I always wear grey with these pants, but black could look nice too (see tip 3 though!) or camel would look great. I paired the bottoms with green in this outfit, but since the color is so dark and really popular now, I consider the army green a neutral.

Lean towards a monochromatic look. If you decide to avoid the neutral route, then go monochromatic. Or, like me, you could combine the two. I added the burgundy scarf in this outfit (which is a really similar hue to the pants) to tie the look together. It would look fine without the scarf, but the accessory gives it some cohesiveness and makes it so the pants stand out less. You could pair the pants with a red/burgundy sweater, but you would want to break up that color with some sort of accessory, like a scarf or vest.

Avoid wearing tall boots. I wore these pants once with a black ruched top (seen here) and the black riding boots from this post. My friend told me I looked like a polo player. She was totally right! (Well, to be fair, I don’t actually know what polo players wear…but I understood what she was saying.) I feel like with my particular pants, black is a bit harsh, or at least it was in that style top. I think I could make it work, I would just wear black in a t-shirt material or long-sleeved top. Honestly, though, I don’t think I’ll be trying tall boots again…I just can’t get the polo image out of my head. Let me know if you would wear these pants with tall boots in the comments!

Tread carefully if wearing a collared blouse. Plaid always makes me a little nervous because it reminds me of grade school when I had to wear a plaid skirt. I’ve considered wearing a white button down blouse with these pants, but I’ve never actually done it because it always felt too “school girl”. Don’t get me wrong, you can totally rock that vibe, it just wasn’t something I was going for. But who knows, maybe I’ll try it. I’ll get back to you on that one. 😉

Pair with something edgy. To help avoid the school girl look or the preppiness that comes with plaid (if that’s your goal), pair your pants with something on the edgier side. This could range from studded accessories to black heeled booties to (p)leather, but since you’re juxtaposing the two styles, your outfit will surely be a winner.

Wear a trench coat! Okay this is kind of random, but I just thought about how cute it would be to wear a classic camel trench coat with these pants. I think the color would look really nice, especially to “lighten” the color scheme of the overall look, and the longer length of trenches would dull down the boldness of the pants. One of those trench coats with the black leather sleeves would look especially chic.

Phew! That was a long post. Thanks so much for reading! I hope these tips helped and that you ladies have a wonderful day. (Random side note: it started to snow during these pictures!)

Miles of smiles,

Grace

Sweater: gift, $24, last seen here, similar here // Jacket: Nordstrom Rack, $30, last seen here, similar here // Scarf: H&M, $12, similar here // Pants: unknown, $40, last seen here, similar here and here (I couldn’t find any in red) // Boots: DSW, $35, last seen here, shop brown booties here