Want to dress up your pets this holiday season? Not sure where to start or what works for your pets? Well, read on and let our tips be your guide to festive pet apparel for your pets.

Prepping your pets for wearing apparel – as we have mentioned prior blog posts, is the first place to start before purchasing an entire wardrobe of holiday wear and you need to begin well in advance of the holidays.

If your pets aren’t used to wearing clothing or accessories, read our blog post here – Apparel Patterns + Pets. If your pets are used to wearing or have become comfortable wearing clothes or accessories, then we can start with choosing colors and patterns.

Ever come home with some clothing, you’re all excited thinking, it’s just the most adorable piece of clothing or accessory and it’s going to look so great on your pet. You cut off the tags, put it on, get your camera app ready and then realize while trying to take a picture, this doesn’t look so good or fit so well. Instagram or photo sharing moment spoiled.

You then think, well wait, this looked so great in the store and the picture of it on the dog looks great. Take another look at that great picture of the dog, notice anything about the coat color? It’s usually one solid color in either white or tan, which can handle the majority of color palettes. Also, look at the size of the dog too, the dog usually is a small breed size, so everything looks great on a small breed.

Festive holiday wear is sometimes difficult to get right because the pattern prints can be too busy or the colors overwhelming. Also, what looks good on a small breed doesn’t look good on a larger breed, a point we continually mention through out our other blog posts.

Let’s take a look at our model Jack, he has multiple coat colors of black, tan and white which makes choosing a color and pattern a bit trickier as you don’t want dark colors and too busy of a pattern, not only would dark colors blend in, but too busy a pattern becomes the main focal point, not the bandana itself. Wait – you’re thinking this dog has a black bandana with tossed print mittens on them, that’s everything we just said not to do.

Here’s why it works – let’s look at his coat coloring. The majority of the black color coat is on his back, not his front.  His chest is mainly tan and white colors, while there is the presence of some black towards the front of his chest, it’s not the majority coloring. The background of the bandana works in this instance because the lighter coloring on his chest helps to contrast the black color and not blend into the coat.

Also, the pattern colors are fairly bright and this is important for two reasons – one the colors in the mittens become the focal point on the bandana, not black background, otherwise, the bandana wouldn’t work with muted colors. As, we mentioned earlier, the multiple coat color does make it a bit trickier to choose colors.

The second reason is the pattern print is the perfect size, while it is somewhat busy, it’s not so large it overwhelms and it isn’t so small that it overwhelms by being too busy. There is a third reason this bandana works that we haven’t mention and that is the size of the bandana itself. The size is important as it also doesn’t overwhelm by covering the majority of Jack’s chest or hang down to the floor – a scenario that could lead to him trying to remove the bandana as it could get in the way when he walks or becomes irritating because it’s too big.

One last tip worth mentioning – you most likely know the colors and patterns that look best on you, whether its clothing, make up, jewelry, etc. The same goes for your pets, try to figure out what colors and patterns look best on them, it’ll make it easier when trying to determine if a particular print or color will work. If possible, take pictures of your pet wearing outfits, ones that you think look good and feel comfortable for them. This is a bit of a task in our busy daily lives, however, it will save on buyer’s remorse and alleviate any discomfort for your pets.