america hot: Color Coordination

This post was my roommate's idea. I asked her if there was anything she'd want to see me post on, and apparently the idea of matching nail polish to an outfit is very stressful. Our room is special, what can I say. But I got to thinking about it and it can be hard to decide what nail polish to wear with an outfit, especially if you're like me and you own like a million nail polishes. It's all about contrast, people. So, without further ado:

The bright/printed outfit: Rebecca Taylor Strapless Dress, $163 at shopbop.com, Essie Mademoiselle: When you have a dress like this, where both the color and the print are doing all the talking, you don't want to make your nails fight with the dress. Clearly the dress will win. It's fricking pink tie-dye. What you want to do here is pick a basically neutral color that will complement the hues of the dress. Since the dress is so pink, I went with a pale pinky-nude. It looks very polished and chic, especially on short nails, and the pink goes well with the dress, but doesn't compete with it. That said, this isn't the only polish you could ever wear with this dress--you could do a light blue-grey, a pastel lavender, etc, etc.

The girly/white outfit: Madison Marcus Gilt V-Neck Dress with Belt, $305 at shopbop.com, OPI Lincoln Park After Dark: I really wanted this white dress to be girlier, but Shopbop failed me. Just imagine that it has ruffles or lace or something. White dresses themselves are very light and girly, and when you add in feminine detailing like ruching and the imaginary lace, you end up with something more Taylor Swift than modern and edgy. If you add a light, pretty polish on top of that, you start looking a little twee. Or like a cupcake. Here, I like to contrast the sweetness of the dress with a deep, vampy polish, and what's vampier than Lincoln Park After Dark? I wouldn't do shimmer here, just because shimmer itself is so girly, and we already have a lot of that going on.

And the edgy LBD: Veda Georgia Dress, $385 at shopbop.com, OPI Diva of Geneva: Last but not least, the classic dilemma: the LBD. I always want to liven up my LBD's with colorful accessories. Don't get me wrong, I love black, but too much black takes you into Taylor Momsen territory. My favorite polishes to do with black are jewel tones--they just look so rich together. I like Diva of Geneva for this because the pinkish-purple hue and the shimmer add a little punch and girliness to this edgy LBD, but it isn't so bright that it looks out of place against the dress.