Purple is in vogue this year for its uniqueness and sense of presence. It is the perfect color for adding a touch of elegance to your wardrobe.
Purple bags and shoes accentuate your appearance, while the color can also serve as the basic tone for coordinating your attire, giving you a fresh look.
Pantone, a U.S. company best known for producing color samples, chose ultraviolet as its color of 2018.
Minako Nomura, manager of sales promotion at 23 Ku, a popular clothing brand for women in their 30s and 40s, said, "Purple creates an impression of elegance and of a composed, adult woman."
The color comes in a number of hues like reddish purple or dusky purple, known as "nasukon" -- literally "eggplant navy" in Japanese.
"The color purple in clothing has continued to change year after year. If you can find an outfit in a shade of purple that's trendy this year, you can match it even with a standard pair of jeans or a shirt and you'll look stylish and in keeping with the season," Nomura said.
Nomura came up with several sample outfits that incorporate popular purples.
Her first pick is a plum-colored half-sleeve cardigan (15,120 yen including tax, or 134 dollars) and a flared skirt in the same color (20,520 yen).
"I chose the same color but with different materials. This gives the outfit more variety and a look of depth," she said.
The skirt is in a playful design that gets longer toward the back. Since skirts are far from your face, you don't have to match them with your skin tone, making them the perfect item for purple neophytes to experiment with. Purple skirts go well with white or navy jackets.
Nomura's next choice is a plum-colored dress (28,080 yen) with a navy jacket.
"A black jacket will create a bit of a heavy impression, but navy ones go well with this purple," she said.
Adding a jacket limits the amount of purple that's visible and mutes the outfit's overall look, making it appropriate for the office.
Her last choice is a lavender top (12,960 yen) and gray wide-leg pants. The puffy feminine sleeves are matched with more masculine pants, a looks she calls "a mix of sweet and cool."
Nomura says lavender tends to look better on women with a pink, rather than yellowish, skin tone.
Vivid colors have been in fashion recently. To introduce such colors into your wardrobe, she recommends "starting with items that you wear often."
Start with accesories
If you rarely wear purple, start by choosing accessories in this trendy color. "Then you can easily add elegance to your look," Nomura said.
A velvet bag (14,040 yen), left, in wine red is perfect for autumn and winter. It goes well with a casual dress. Natural stone earrings (14,040 yen), right, are good for accenting such simple clothing as a white T-shirt.
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