1

Prairie Blouse

Recently I purchased a pair of high-waisted pants from Zara. It has a wide pant leg, and the pants sport a houndstooth pattern. Rather than printed, I believe the pattern is sewn. I was very excited on the day it got delivered, because it’s such a majestic piece of clothing, in terms of its physical weight and its intricate sewn-through pattern. About a week later, I decided to wear it out to meet my friends. That’s when I found out my issue: I didn’t know what to wear with it.

Related: Making Bold Prints Work Even When It’s Not in Season

2

Square-collared Top

I had plenty of tops, beautiful unique ones as well as plain white ones that should have been possible to wear with it. But I wasn’t satisfied with how they looked with the loudness of the houndstooth pattern cum wide pant legs. Basically, the tops that I had, whether be in the colours or the silhouette, they were pretty much mismatched when paired up with the houndstooth pattern.

3

Square-collared Sleeveless Top

There was only one top that managed to look all right, but even that I had to “alter” the awkwardness of the look with my brown Bonia crossbody bag. Without the bag, the outfit looked pretty much like a child playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes. And this top that looked fine with it, just barely, was a white Zara top with miniscule patterned squares sewn all over. I know, it’s an awkward fit because you have two heavily patterned clothing paired together. But the only thing that was holding these two together is that the top ended at waist height, and so there was a kind of cropped top kind of look against the high-waisted silhouette of the pants.

4

Cropped Top

And so, when I got home from a night out with the girls, I sat down at my laptop and started scouring the Internet for options. I wanted to pair the houndstooth pattern-wide leg silhouette with a top that’s cinched at the waist, or a top that’s long enough to be tucked in to achieve the same cinched-at-the-waist effect. I also liked for the top to be white to give the look a more classy feel, just because the houndstooth pattern gives off that kind of vibe. I think of Chanel when I look at these pants.

5

Button Down Shirt

Throughout the article are some tops, in white, coloured, cinched and loose, that I found on FarFetch.com that I reckon would look good with the houndstooth pattern-wide leg silhouette.