How to Plan a Beach Friendly Outfit Around an Accessory

With summer so close you're likely already planning at least one trip to play in the sand and swim in the waves. This simple guide will help you take a fashionable accessory and turn it into a full, and equally fashionable, outfit.



1. The accessory I'll be using for this article contains two primary colors. Now when I say primary, I don't mean color-wheel primary (red, green, blue) I mean that they are the prominent colors in the piece I've chose. For this piece, Orange and Turquoise carry the same weight. Neither is stronger nor more prominent than the other.

These two colors work well together as they're complimentary to one another, meaning that they are directly across from one another on the color-wheel. These colors contain the most contrast from one another and therefore look the best together.

The main reason I chose this piece, however, is because orange is trendy right now and this choker necklace not only gives us a good boost of orange, but also the perfect color to help build an outfit that's attractive and doesn't conjure up images of prison jumpsuits.

While we won't be focusing on it as much for this particular outfit, we also gain a touch of gold accents.

2. So now we need to choose our neutral canvas on which to build our outfit. Since this is supposed to be a beach friendly/summer time outfit we're probably not going to want black as our neutral. Black absorbs heat and really just isn't ideal. White, I think, will work best in a situation like this.

I also planned this outfit assuming that you're probably going to be wearing a bathing suit underneath. So I wanted something that would be lightweight and easy to move in as well as be easy to slip on and off. It also had to look enough like an ordinary dress that you could stop at a gas station or grocery store, or even go out to eat, while still looking classy.

This butterfly print tube dress will serve nicely. It's lightweight, mostly white, and easy to slide on and off. The butterfly pattern breaks up the white and adds interest to an otherwise very simple and plain dress design.

The colors in the dress are completely neutral, meaning we can pair it with whatever we want and it should work. Something like this can become a real workhorse for your wardrobe, allowing you to very quickly fashion multiple outfits using the same main piece.

Our second neutral piece is our hat. Protect yourself from harmful UV rays and look stylish while doing it with a wide brimmed weaved hat.

Earth tones are another member of the neutral family and since we don't want to overwhelm our outfit with an excessive amount of black or white, the standard beige hat is perfect for our needs.

San Diego Hat Company has a reputation for high quality hats and this one is an XL brim meaning it has even more coverage than a standard brim hat. Perfect for keeping your shoulders, neck, and nose from burning while out and about in the sun.

3. Now it's time to think about layering in our primary colors. After some searching about I decided to block in two large items for our two colors.

The first is the turquoise crocheted bolero. It layers nicely with our dress and the beautiful crocheted pattern will keep it from getting too warm. There are no buttons or straps or fasteners to get in the way, so you'll be able to easily slip it off when you're ready to head into the water. It also helps to add an extra touch of class to your dress and make it a less obvious swimsuit cover.

Our second piece is going to be a large orange tote bag. We'll carry this on our shoulder and it will add a good sized chunk of orange to our outfit and help to keep our two colors in balance.

 It's important to keep one color from overwhelming the other. If that happens then we lose symmetry in the outfit and it starts to look less planned and more haphazard.

There are ways to incorporate asymmetry into an outfit that look good and add significantly to your style, but that is a lesson for another day.

To achieve the look we're going for here, balance is necessary.

4. So now that we have our primary colors laid in over our neutrals, it's time to grab our shoes.

Since we're planning for a beach day, we want to avoid anything with high heels. Those would just be useless in the sand.  We also want something we can easily remove, but we want it to play into the classy look we've been cultivating. So no flip flops.

Instead we're going to go with a gladiator sandal. 

These are currently in style so you're probably going to see a lot of them this summer. The orange straps play into one of our primary colors, and the zipper on the back of the heel will allow you to take them off without much trouble.

The style, the color of the straps, and the low heel make these perfect for our outfit and the look we want.

5. Now for the finishing touches. The secondary accessories. We've got a couple that we're going to be going with this time.

We're going to go with a bracelet that combines both of our colors, and helps to add some balance to the top half of our look.

I would personally put one on each wrist for symmetry, but a single bracelet will work so long as you do the same with the anklet we're going to add next.

Make sure to do opposites. If you have your bracelet on the right wrist then put your anklet on the left ankle. This will help keep things balanced.

Because we've already got the orange shoes, we're going with a turquoise anklet. Since the straps of the gladiator sandal come partially up the ankle then your anklet will probably overlap slightly.

This is actually a good thing. Since we have the two primary colors side by side on our wrist we want a similar effect with our ankle.

Now for the final touch, something that no beach day outfit would be complete without, the sunglasses.

Kind of retro in style, these bring the last touch of orange to our look and gives us some much needed protection. Our hat can only do so much on its own and doesn't really protect against sun glare off the water.

So that's it. Our two color beach day outfit is complete. Layer with your favorite swimsuit, tuck a towel and some sunscreen in your tote bag and you're ready for a day in the sun.