The Vivienne Files

Ready for Leafy Autumn Colors? Start With Art – Red Rotation by Victor Servranckx

November 12, 2025

Another heroine who is going to experiment with her neutral colors, to try to change the... feel? the mood? of her travel capsule wardrobes by omitting one of her neutral colors. Let's see how this works!

First up is her wardrobe inspiration, by an artist with a name that CAN'T be typed quickly:

The core of our heroine's wardrobe is black and ivory, with definite accents of brown and rust...

After getting dressed with mostly these colors for years and years, our heroine realized that she can take one color out of her four-color palette and have FOUR new, smaller color schemes:

Women's Basketball Home Opener! She and many of her friends played basketball when they were in college; it was VERY ... View the Post

November 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #6: Eiffel Tower by Robert Delaunay

November 10, 2025

Our last installment for this month - one of my favorite paintings!

This heroine gave some serious thought to what her holiday seasons promises to bring, and came to the conclusion that silky pants and a pretty blouse will be more than adequate for her festive needs. A couple of cardigans that can be dressed up, and some fun star and moon accessories, finish up her November shopping:

please note that "silky" does NOT equal "silk." Neither does "satin." There's a lot of... confusing clothing descriptions in the world...

When she brings home her new things, she finds that everything blends in pretty much perfectly! There is always that satisfaction when you are disciplined with your ... View the Post

November 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #5: Street Lights by Stefan Johansson

November 7, 2025

These aren't really the colors that we think of for the winter holidays, but there's more than enough red and holly green in the world...

If one is patient, and disciplined, it is possible to find lovely dressy things that are perfect with this wardrobe:

Remember that if you're looking for a holiday brooch, Talbots is where you want to look first!

The gold sequins blend pretty well into this wardrobe, and the two sweaters are just right:

This heroine has some of the BEST scarves!

And our heroine already had a gold handbag and gold sandals; in warmer weather she can wear her gold sequined garments with sandals rather than ballet flats. Choices are nice to have!

Our heroine ... View the Post

November 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #4: Pines by the Sea by Bertha Lum

November 6, 2025 Breaking the Rules - Sometimes You Just Want To! Our heroine has this lovely painting to inspire her wardrobe choices:

Our heroine needs a dressy outfit for a VERY special occasion. She looked and looked at her "usual" colors - especially teal. But she came back, and back again, to these two (very expensive!) pieces in sequined taupish brown. And she finally caved...

Now, her wardrobe doesn't look a lot different, except she now has these two sequined garments that sort of stick out...

As always, are we smitten with her jewelry and scarves?

The shoes and bag that she bought for her event don't really blend in with everything else. This is okay; imagine the flats and bag worn with denim, or with ... View the Post

November 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #3: Sun, Water Maine by O’Keeffe

November 5, 2025

I love this painting - it's not unlike the view from my window...

Our heroine's preparation for the holiday season is pretty simple - she buys a simple sweater that has sequins knitted into it! (I confess, I have a black cabled cashmere sweater with sequins, and I wear it a LOT more than I ever imagined...)

She adds in a pair of winter white wool pants, a classic Aran-style crewneck, and a navy turtleneck. Some gold accessories, and she's ready for anything her schedule might thrown at her!

She has fewer beige/ivory clothes than she has navy and green. This makes sense to me; the lighter colors aren't as versatile for many of us.

The time that I'm always tempted by a wardrobe is when I look at ... View the Post

November 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #2: Of by Elizabeth Magill

November 4, 2025

I'm still able to find lovely clothes for this VERY limited color palette. Can you imagine wearing only two colors?

Years ago, when I was a bookstore chic(k), I wore only black and white. For years...

Of course, if you wanted to be strict to this painting, there could be much more white, and a denim-ish blue:

Her new tops are all quite festive, but her skirt can be worn for all kinds of things throughout the autumn and winter...

She still has fewer grey garments that in the other colors! Of course, I could move the white things onto the grey page...

I'm very smitten with her jewelry and scarves...

Her new clothes give her a LOT of options for getting dressed-up these next few ... View the Post

November 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #1: The Swan No. 24 by Hilma Af Klint

November 3, 2025

I'm always so excited to start these posts each month! Here's today very thought-provoking, but beautiful, inspiration painting:

So I seem to remember that most of us felt like the Weekly Timeless Wardrobe template wasn't really serving a useful purpose at this point, so I've discarded them! Instead, this month especially I'm going to concentrate on getting all of our heroines dressed for the upcoming bundle of holidays.

Today's heroine is getting a couple of velvet pieces, which can be worn with other fabrics to instantly bring a festive feeling to any day. And I'm also giving this lovely lady a couple of cashmere sweaters - another instant upgrade for anything you wear. Yes, they're expensive. If cared for ... View the Post

Can’t Live Without Denim? Start With Art – Prunus by Kees van Dongen

October 31, 2025

One last tour through the potential of "The Four T's" in dark chocolate brown, starting today with this lovely painting:

There's no way I will be able to match this blue exactly, so I'm just going to work with a soft, faded denim/chambray...

There's a little bit of pink in this painting; would this be a good piece of art to include in next year's "Six Paintings"?

First off, let's not forget our core of brown clothes and accessories:

The simplest four garments in denim blue - I was pretty thrilled to find both the sweater and tee shirt!

And finally three tops in ivory!

And of course, I'm going to find some accessories!

Now, our heroine's wardrobe looks VERY different than it ... View the Post

A Pretty Brown Wardrobe? Start With Art – Flowers in a Crystal Vase by Edouard Manet

October 29, 2025

This is the third post in a series; the initial post with just brown in it can be found here, and the second post, which was a brown, black and white wardrobe, is here.

Maybe you like brown, and maybe you think of it as an infinitely feminine color. Seriously, hear me out!

It's the color of soil. Which is the source of all things green, growing and fertile. That would be us, ladies...

And I'm offering up this beautiful painting to inspire us:

Of course, this wardrobe could easily include green... I'm considering this painting to include in next year's "6 Paintings" posts, and I would absolutely include a range of greens...

First up, let's get our brown clothes and accessories ready:

I was ... View the Post

With the Change of Seasons…

October 27, 2025

it's time to revisit the contents of our emergency backpacks or bags. Once every six months or so, these need to be updated and all of the things that are becoming dated need to be replaced!

At a minimum, you're going to need to have different clothing. If you live somewhere that gets truly cold, consider packing a set of long underwear, and some warm socks. A hat and gloves are never wrong...

Take a good look at all of your prescription medications, and your OTC medicines too. They should be at least six months from their expiration date; if this is the bag that you would grab any time between now and the arrival of spring, assume at least six months.

Back-up batteries for your phone are essential! Power ... View the Post

Brown with Black? Start With the 4 T’s in Brown…

October 24, 2025

For our first adventure into using the Four T's as the basis of a capsule or travel wardrobe, I'm (of course!) going to see how black works out...

First, let's take another look at the brown things that we assembled on Wednesday:

This isn't at all complicated - now let's add four black garments. The most basic four garments possible, I think...

We could stop with just these four additions, but let's get our heroine up to 13 garments. This would meant that for travel, she could wear a 3-piece outfit, and pack the other 10 things. I'm quite smitten - for no good reason! - with the idea of packing 10 pieces of clothing...

Here's the fun part! Finding accessories that include both black and brown is ... View the Post

Do You Want to Shore-Up Your Neutral(s)? Try the Four T’s!

October 22, 2025

Why yes, the internet outages on Monday WERE a headache...

Ten years ago, when I was visiting London, I noticed that a lot of women had worked out a really simple way to build outfits, and therefore their wardrobe. I called it The Four T's, because of COURSE I had some mnemonic to help me remember things!

But it's simple enough: tee shirt, turtleneck, trousers and tights. Look back ten years to see the original post...

Now that I'm (a) getting dressed each day for legitimate cool weather, and (b) considering what I might pack when I go to Paris in December, I thought that I should look at this idea again.

But not in black! My choices for myself will of course be black, but in the interests of variety let's ... View the Post