![](https://ielfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/mix_and_match-1.jpg)
To look interesting and stylish it is not necessary to buy expensive clothes.
And you don’t need to follow all the fashion trends. The easiest way to create a trendy and creative image is to use the mix&match style technique.
Our Italian teacher from Milan – Silvia Stefanini – will tell how to combine styles in clothes today.
She works as a stylist for such well-known magazines as Vogue, Elle, LʼOfficiel and teaches on stylists courses in our school.
What is mix & match?
Today in the fashion world it is very important when you combine 2 or 3 contrasting styles with each other in one image. This is called mix&match and it’s not as difficult as it may seem.
How to combine styles in clothes using mix & match technique?
You take some style, a clean set of clothes and add 1 or 2 things from a contrasting style to it.
For example:
Take a pastel dress with lace of a romantic style and add 1 rock style accessory – black leather shoes.
Now we have a set with 2 contrasting styles: rock and romance. That’s mix & match of romantic and rock styles.
![](https://ielfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/romantic_and_rock.jpg)
One more example:
You take a classic suit and add sneakers from the sport style.
Sporty and classic styles are considered contrasting.
![](https://ielfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/classic_and_sport.jpg)
What styles may be combined
The most important thing in creating an image in the mix & match technique is to choose contrasting styles.
So a set of clothes will look unusual and unexpected.
What we mean:
Take a classic office dress.
If you combine it with ballet shoes, it will go an absolutely ordinary image, there are no contrasts here.
But if you add sneakers to a classic dress, it will already look like a contrasting and unexpected element.
![](https://ielfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/classic_flats.jpg)
![](https://ielfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/classic_sneakers.jpg)
What is not mix & match of styles?
If one of you thinks that mixing styles is when you simply add another casual bag to sports items, in reality it will not look like mix & match.
Or if you wear some less classic bag with an evening dress – it will not look like mix & match either.
However, if you wear an evening dress with a crossbody bag, which is more associated with the sporty style, you get a contrast of styles.
![](https://ielfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/evening_crossbody_bag.jpg)
In mix & match there must be a contrast, that is the main point. The detail must be completely from another contrasting style.
What styles are considered contrasting in the fashion world today:
- sport and classics
- romance and rock
- rock and sport
- evening wear and sporty style
![](https://ielfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/sport_classic.jpg)
![](https://ielfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/romantic_rock_sport.jpg)
![](https://ielfs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/evening_sport.jpg)