How to Dress for a Family Photo: Pattern Play

Happy Thanksgiving Fashion Pilgrims!

Florence Welch & The Machine

 Creative playfulness, unexpected essentia, the province of patterns.  If you choose to advance your family portrait into the realm of pattern, choose supporting ornamentations.  Select simple patterns like small florals, pinstripes, and polka-dots.  You and your dear ones are the photographic Prima Donnas so don’t surrender the spotlight to a bright ikat. 

Also consider the placement of patterns.  One pattern is all one family member should likely sustain.    If possible, refuse your patterns immediate contact. Solids provide critical white space for your family assembly.  

Keeping all your patterns in the same color family can add further sophistication. The more colors, patterns, and people you introduce, the greater chance for ocular disjoint.

Speaking of adding more members to the photograph, more people should directly translate into more motif caution. Whereas a spattering of stripes and florals will not overwhelm a family of four, it could enact a pictorial cataclysm in a family of fifty.   

Patterns can practice spotlight thievery, just when your rosy cheeks are ready to shine, Auntie Clementine’s fluorescent brocade bares its brilliance stealing the shutter’s concentration. Squelch the focus filching by opting for unassuming solids. Solids are natural supporting actors, allowing visages to take the lead.

For large or extended family portraits,  a similar range of solid colors makes it easy to identify confederate members in your extended family portrait. Clothing doesn’t need to match exactly, but it should blend.   Individual garments ought to share similarities in hue (pigment), value (light/dark), and/or chroma (purity). A palette of ocean blues (similar hue), bold primary colors (similar value), or ashy pastels (similar purity) would place each family member on equal color footing.  However, if you place cousin Sally in scarlet and niece Brenda in beige, there will be talk of favoritism. Sally will bloom and Brenda will recede into an angst filled background.

The final step arrives tomorrow, to your color theory and pattern play, add props.

And if you haven't yet entered this week's giveaway...

Allow Cardigan Empire to style your kin for their next Family Photo. Click here to book a family-sized virtual shopping session.