Long gone are the days of the women’s classic work clothes consisting of the “power suit” and the floppy tie that women had to wear to the office.  As women have made their mark on the workplace, fashion has made its mark as well.  While dressing for work is different than getting ready to express your personal style at a party or dinner with friends,  there are still some great must have clothing for the office this spring that can bring you high visibility at work.

Add some color: A tailored pants suit is still a great way to strut your stuff and be taken seriously at the same time. As always, a well made piece will last a life time and is a great fashion investment.  Make sure both the jacket and pants fit well and are tailored to accentuate your body type.   While the classic navy, black and gray suits won’t ever go out, a brightly colored suit can punch up your look without discrediting your office moves.

Office structure with the men’s style vest: This season, the structure of suits are flowing more of a traditional men’s look, which helps in a piece’s longevity.  The classic tailoring of a men’s type cut pairs nicely with more feminine accesories and creates a nice juxtaposition to a sharp toed pump or a peep toed mule.  If it’s not the time to make investment in a new suit, then pick up a man’s style vest or two.   Vests are back with a vengeance and can perfectly accent last year’s blouse for fashion staying power. Think a modern Annie Hall; search your closet and look for new separates to pair up.

Staying Grounded in Neutral colors:

The neutral tones have continued staying power as well.   Safari cut jackets in tones of khaki are one of this seasons must have. A safari type jacket is the perfect way to top an office dress and goes very nicely with some of the more tribal prints that are hot this year.  Deeper toned tailored slacks pair up well with this seasons bights, as well, and provide a very necessary foundation for the hues of spring.

Layer up with a great new cardigan sweater: As the weather gets warmer outside, the temperature gets colder inside.  Office air conditioning often makes spring and summer street wear feel like a holiday in Alaska.  Layering office clothing is a perfect way to mitigate the sever fluxation in temperatures. This year the classic cardigan is all over, providing some very nice warmth to early sleeveless looks.  The added benefit of a versatile sweater? Clothing that screams summer can now be worn through the spring and into the fall without making you break into a sweat.

Accessories are bigger and brighter than ever; Jewelry is on the rise and the sizes are still growing.  Though the mantra now is “the bigger and chunkier the better”, it should not be overdone.  One armful of complimentary chunky bracelets or a fabulous necklace, not both, is the key. Pair a statement making piece with a more subdued blouse or dress background to avoid visual confusion.

Belts, shoes, bags, and scarves cannot be forgotten either.   Belts can still be nice thick; perfect for accenting a slim waste, or a tighter, slimmer bit of brighter color snaking through the tops of slacks. For spring look for bags reminiscent of cute 1960’s camera bags with long straps in bright colors.  Shoes continue to be all about the sculptured heels and almost anything goes.   From spike heels with odd designs, to oddly shaped wedges, the more unique the shoe, the better.   A spring scarf is all about fabric, color and weight.  Obviously warmth is not the main purpose when this spring’s hottest scarves are made of whisper thin chiffon.  A scarf if a great way to mix in a floral, soften a tailored jacket and add a bit of color next to your face.

Keeping a varied mix between the classic office look and your own personal style promotes a winning combination that is bound for favorable reviews.  

For many of the 100,000 plus fans attending this now four day musical festival in California’s Coachella Valley, it was all the  over 100 musical acts that graced the stages this past weekend.  Music, though, never lives in a vacuum, so the major fashion magazines took their cameras into the crowds to check out the street style. 

Keeping in mind those temperatures can reach over 100 degrees, and many were attending and camping out for the four days, there still seemed to be some various fashion trends coming out of the masses.

Legs were bare with seas of shorts shorts.  While denim seemed to be favored by celebrities, shorts all around held their own.  Stripped shorts, brightly colored shorts, and shorts with big boots all caught the camera eyes of the magazines.   It seemed the very fashionable went one step father and rebelled against the low-waisted denim on seasons past, as special mentions were made of those sporting  high wasted coverage.

Along with the short shorts, were many short little dresses.  Sleeveless tanks, t-shirt dresses, floral numbers and vintage inspired chic all made the camera smile. Often a loose dress was paired with a belt and, due to the music festival aspect, many a fanny-pack as well. Baby doll  were given special mention as the majority of legs did remain bare, but long dresses also go some attention as well.

Hats were all around. Again, probably having to do more with the endless beating sun, though this pair in Cowboy straw covers had to know they were saying something.  Still, many hats of many different styles made it to the publish pictures.  Along with hats, various headbands were seen. Thick ones, thin ones, head bands covered with flowers.

The undergarment of choice, again, think heat, was the bathing suit. If the bathing suit was only partially covered up, then that was Ok as well,  For some it was just an oversized t-shirt, some had cut up their t-shirts into huge sleeveless tops,  And for many others, the bikini top was the shirt.

Barefoot, flip flopped and sandaled all stood in line, but the season hot gladiator trend held court and also seem to garnish a fine percentage of pictures as well.  The low cut “bootlette” of this spring was seen as was almost any manner of boot baring lots of leg. Boots  were paired with just about anything.

As this was a music festival, and all music festivals have the roots in the Woodstock of the 60’s, the classic hippie wear could not be forgotten. Therefore, from the simple Indian influenced hippie type dress to a classic all over Woodstock acceptable assembly, one might think that they travelled back in time

Maybe it’s because diversity is a trend or perhaps it is one of 7^th Avenues’ answers to ‘going green”, but earthy tribal prints are making waves for this spring and summer and the hottest of all are Ikats.

Tribal patterns are often all over prints that take their influence from various forms of nature. A form of a leaf, flowers, bone, or the pattern of an animal skin is often standard patterns.  More African patterns feature primitive art motifs that would have previously found their way onto cultural art or primitive masks and now are making their way down the runway and into stores.

The color pallets for these fabrics are based on natural printmaking and traditional dying techniques, so greens from plants, bark, husks, lichen, and berries bring a natural feel all over. For instance, the dyes from onion skins create a wonderfully warm golden mustard color which can then paired with a black for a dramatic positive verses negative effect.  Fashionable tribal fabrics often pin a strong bright color against the neutral tones with dark browns and blacks.  Even if the fabric is obviously not hand dyed from nature, the full tribal patterns can bring out the animal in us all.

Ikat Prints are everywhere! 

The hottest of all prints this year are Ikat prints. Ikat, or Ikkat, is a style of weaving that uses a resist dyeing process similar to tie-dye.  While almost all of the tribal prints have  their roots in  an original people and their culture, Ikat is credited to Malay- Indonesia.  In the Malay language, Ikat translates to means “to tie” or “to bind” or “to knot”, which is the technique used.  In principle, Ikat or resist dyeing involves the sequence of tying and dyeing sections of bundled yarns to a predetermined color scheme prior to weaving. Technologically, this weaving refers to thread-resist textile. The threads, which are colored, are then woven into the fabric.

The traditional Ikats from Malaysia are actually much more complicated than the fashionable textiles baring their name this year. While in fashion terms  “Ikat prints” tends to hand a zig zaggy tribal look to it with only one or two colors.  The look is more akin to a simpler weave of the dyed threads, or taking a piece of fabric, tying it off to resist the dyes, and that produces the effect like this scarf.

Clothing made from Ikat inspired fabrics are literally everywhere this year.  From the top designer’s runway collections to the local stores, Ikat is making huge ways. Airy summer dresses, cute tops, long skirts, short skirts, bathing suits, scarves, and even underwear are screaming Ikat all over.