STYLE GURU STYLE: Put On Your Red Shoes

Music inspires so much of my life, including fashion. I own an extensive amount of band T-shirts (or, perhaps, I should say excessive?), and the music I listen to each morning often sets the vibe for my outfit of the day.

This morning, when David Bowie sang out of my laptop speakers, “put on your red shoes and dance the blues,” I thought, why not? I decided wear my brightly colored and beat-up sneakers, taking a page out of the book of one of my style inspirations, celebrity stylist Lauren “Lulu” Bernard: red high-top sneakers are her go-to footwear. And, while Bowie probably didn’t have Converse on the brain when he wrote that lyric, sneakers are a better fit for walking across campus during finals week.

I wanted to stick with the theme of Bowie, and what better way to honor Ziggy Stardust than with his name printed across my bomber jacket (and it matched my shoes, too!).

David Bowie wasn’t the only musical inspiration present in this look, I also wore one of my many Walk the Moon T-shirts, adding an extra graphic, but providing a soft bit of monochrome amidst all of the bright red.

While bomber jackets have certainly been my favorite trend in 2016, I have also fallen in love with the denim and DIY look. Denim jackets, enamel pins and patches have taken over my closet, but what I love even more is patches on jeans. I went for a pair of black jeans for the same reason that I wore a black T-shirt—I don’t want to detract from the red. While I wish I could say that this killer pair of distressed jeans was a work of my own DIY skills, I actually bought them pre-patched and torn up.

Mixing trends, such as distressed denim and bomber jackets is one of my favorite ways to create a look, and it’s even more fun when I can pull inspiration from the music I love.

“(Let’s Dance) Put on your red shoes and dance the blues,
(Let’s Dance) To the song they’re playing on the radio,
(Let’s Sway) While color lights up your face,
(Let’s Sway) Sway through the crowd to an empty space,”

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