Growing up, there were fashion codes my friends and I religiously followed, and even my sartorially challenged younger self knew there were certain things you just shouldn’t do. However, designers have taught us that some fashion rules are meant to be broken. So throw out the guides you’ve always known and try out three lessons the runway taught us this year:
Mixing patterns is a fantastic idea.
Some of the most striking looks on the Fall ’14 runways boasted bold, seemingly clashing patterns. From stripes and plaids to florals and animal spots, nothing was off-limits. Have a look at collections from mix masters Dries Van Noten and Peter Pilotto to see how it’s done.
Black and blue make a hell of a pair.
The black-and-blue combo has long been considered a no-no, but it just happened to be the most popular color scheme on the Fall runways. Need proof? Check out the Oscar de la Renta and Marc by Marc Jacobs‘ Fall lineups.
When it comes to footwear, socks and sandals are the bee’s knees.
Formerly associated with clueless, fanny-pack-toting tourists, the socks-and-sandals trend tore through the Resort ’15 collections (Rag & Bone and M.Patmos included) and popped up on the streets during the Fall ’14 shows. (Fanny packs are back, too, by the way.) We can thank normcore for this one.
