September 18, 2024
Just as a reminder, this is her autumn wardrobe in its entirety:
She’s refreshed her accessories, as she moves into a few weeks in which she’s going to pack her denim and brown cores. Each week, she will change to a new accent color, so while she’s wearing the same clothes most of the time, she doesn’t get bored…
Here are her denim pieces:
Earrings – Lauren Ralph Lauren; shirt – Lands’ End; Vest – Splendid; scarf – Jessie Zhao New York; dress – L.L.Bean; wristlet – Frye; Jacket – L.L.Bean; jeans – Lands’ End; skirt – Lands’ End; shoes – Baretraps
And her brown things – how yummy is brown?
Brown cardigan blazer – Lands’ End; earrings – FZN; tee shirt – Lands’ End; scarf – Lauren Ralph Lauren; bag – Le Sak; turtleneck – Lands’ End; pants – Lands’ End; loafers – Sam Edelman
She’s found a new burgundy scarf, with a lot of deep green in it – it will look great with her evergreen accent pieces too. Sometimes that happens – you get lucky!
Cardigan blazer – Lands’ End; tee shirt – Lands’ End; earrings – Way to Chic; wrap sweater – Lands’ End; loafers – Earth; scarf – Aspinal of London
So for the first week of her denim and brown packing, her travel capsule wardrobe will look like this:
Of course she could travel for weeks with these clothes, but she already has four outfits in mind…
She loved that wardrobe, but she moves ahead with her evergreen accent – what a great scarf!
Deep forest vest – Lands’ End; cardigan – Lands’ End; shirt – Lands’ End; malachite earrings – Kris Nations; kerchief – Elizabetta; shoes – Miz Mooz
When she does her laundry and swaps out her burgundy accents for green, this is how her wardrobe looks:
Her four outfits for this travel week are easy – she could almost do this in her sleep!
Sunday night, she does laundry AGAIN, and exchanges her evergreen accent garments and accessories for her warm and luscious camel pieces:
Earrings – Anthropologie; scarf – Kinalba; boots – Aerosoles; Cardigan – J.Crew; cashmere crewneck – J.Crew; short-sleeved sweater – J.Crew
As she packs these 13 pieces, she admires just how lovely the colors are…
Her Tuesday through Friday outfits are easy to find!
If – hypothetically – she was going away for longer than four nights, she could still use her denim and brown neutrals and pack ALL THREE accent colors! What a fun autumn wardrobe this gives her:
The more I look at these, the more I want to pack!
love,
Janice
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Oh, brown does make a lovely neutral. With just a few pieces. Especially this time of year. And the accessories are outstanding! Personally, I prefer the brown to the black from Monday. Especially with the camel.
Oh, nice to see.
The accessories are so beautifully selected and complete the outfits perfectly.
My jeans would be a little darker, especially for fall/winter.
Maria, ditto on the darker jeans!
This is gorgeous. I can’t wait to see the cream/stone set on Friday! I can just imagine the whole thing together with the denim, brown, cream, burgundy, evergreen and camel all together.
This is an absolutely wonderful idea! I have a lot of colors in my wardrobe and this is an elegant way to think of them and organize them. I can see myself starting with black, navy and grey as core wardrobe pieces and switching in different bright accent colors every week. My mind is buzzing
Buzzing is good! Especially on a Monday…
hugs,
Janice
Love these travel wardrobes. They offer a great way to organize our clothes for the upcoming season. Denim is a good choice for the base and the brown or black adds a nice dimension before we add the accent colors.
Love your work!
This is a completely brilliant system! It satisfies my love of color and variety without owning a huge amount of clothing. So many possibilities: two neutrals with two accents, or three neutrals and two accents…..And, you could add a bottom to each of your accents, and it still is only 30 pieces. Love this so much. I am planning to do this for myself now, even though I do not travel so frequently. It works for an everyday wardrobe at home. Also, I am so happy to see a beautiful dark green. Thank you, Janice!
For me, I would add a four piece navy neutral. I do love color and variety!
I call things travel wardrobes, but in reality a grouping of 13 pieces could just be a “weekly wardrobe,” or monthly… For those of us who must keep part of our wardrobes in storage ALL THE TIME, this made sense to me. I’m thrilled that it’s logical to other people! Sometimes, something that seems sensible to me might just make everyone else roll their eyes!
hugs,
Janice
I have been doing something kind of like this for about the last month. I select 4-5 mix n match outfits and use them for around 10 days, then swap them out for another set when the time is up. It’s really reducing my laundry loads!
I just love all of this. You make it so easy to see how the accent pieces can flow in and out. I’m going to have to organize my wardrobe like this!
Gasp. The idea to switch out the accent color on a weekly basis is brilliant. I am planning my fall/winter wardrobe and will be incorporating this idea to keep things fresh without having to go out and buy still more stuff.
I’m especially looking forward to the denim, ivory, camel collection. I’ve suddenly been drawn to neutrals. Mainly tan, camel, and caramel along with ivory and denim and navy. My biggest problem is when to stop buying or making clothes in my current favorite colors. This edition of TVF is a great way to help me exercise a bit more control.
On another note, many times I will plan an outfit for some upcoming event or appointment. I may even try it on and on some occasions take a photo of myself in it, just to make sure I’m comfortable with it. Then, when the time arrives to wear said outfit it feels and/or looks all wrong. This can happen even if I just tried it on the day before. Has anyone else experienced this? And, if so, do you have any suggestions on how you approach this?
Get another opinion. I also take photos then share them with one of my sisters who has a good eye not only for fashion but also what I’m projecting in the photo such as happy, confident, unsure, etc.
Yes, that happens to me too. I usually prep outfits for my work week the weekend before, since I’m brain dead before coffee. Typically, I find that most of the outfits work for me, but there’s always at least one that doesn’t. My simple way around this is to pick a couple of extra outfits, so if I’m not feeling one of them, I just swap it for a different outfit. If it’s a special event, I prep 2-3 outfits, complete with accessories, and just grab and wear the one I’m feeling the most that day. Sure, I end up having to put more things away at the end of the week or after an event, but I consider that a small price to pay for feeling my best.
Oh my goodness!! I love all of these colors and pieces!! Fantastic selections!!😊
The denim-brown-camel capsule is my favorite. It has the most contrast with dark, medium and light color values. Love the plaid scarf and camel booties. Also looking forward to the denim-stone/ivory-capsules on Friday. It will be interesting to see how the green and burgundy accents work as they will become the darkest values in those capsules.
Having weekly capsules is something I’ve considered for awhile. Thanks for creating a system to do that with fewer clothes.
Debra Indy,
I totally agree on the 3 values presented here, as well as both a warm and a cooler accent color.
Love that the accents colors are shown only with top pieces. This is how I wear accents. If a buy a pair of shorts/pants in an accent it usually ends up in the donate bin. Although, accents are good options for dresses in my wardrobe.
What A Practical Fall Wardrobe for every day casual wear!!! Thank you for all the colors included!!!
Janice, there appears to be an issue with the brown scarf’s link. Thanks!
I think it’s working now – if not, the scarf is from Macy’s. I’m sort of amazed by how many nice scarves they’re carrying this fall…
hugs,
Janice
I love this whole wardrobe. I’m particularly interested in the Lands End cardigan jacket. I think I might just get it in navy. And last post you mentioned the comfort of their pants. They ship to Canada easily now.
Thank you Janice for all you do!
Janice,
It’s me, it’s me — this grouping, that is ! I might sub in an off white top for the camel one . And the scarves , especially the Aspinal one — perfection ! You’ve nailed it with this post for me !
I agree with the reader above who said she only uses accent colors above the waist— with my larger bottom half, I stick to neutrals there !
I usually like accent colors above the waist because those are garments that are more noticed, and which are laundered more often. I’ve lived a huge chunk of my life wearing black pants and skirts, and I don’t think anyone has ever commented that I wear too much black below my waist! Everybody’s mileage is different, but learning what works for us is invaluable!
hugs,
Janice
Janice,
I might sub out the jeans skirt for a pair of camel pants too . I don’t have a skirt, but I do have some tan/ camel pants .
That would be a really smart substitution. The Heritage stone pants also come in a color that’s pretty closet to camel…
hugs,
Janice
Update- I just ordered that navy jacket cardigan and those pants you said were comfy, also navy and that V neck cotton ivory sweater all from Land’s End. Last day apparently of their 40% off fall sale on everything. Cotton knits, washable and in colours I wanted.
I was looking closely at my old ivory cotton knit fisherman sweater as I put together my fall project 333 and I should really consider replacing it, so this Vneck cotton one from Land’s End will do that perfectly. It’s an essential element in my wardrobes going back 50 years – in some form or other.
The only cardigan I have in navy is a very bright royal blue navy and it doesn’t go with my fall navy which is more inky dark true navy in the pants so this will give me that jacket look I’m missing, plus the comfort of a true navy cardigan- again, washable cotton. It will go into my spring capsule as well- that is heavily navy based.
I’ve wanted to try out Land’s End for some time- and this wardrobe post (and the previous 2 in this wardrobe) decided me.
THANK YOU Janice!
Is it just me or did the camel boots change to loafers?
All of the accessories changed! I’m magical…
hugs,
Janice
And for a big finish, our heroine could travel with denim and one item from each color way! Janice I hope I am not stealing your thunder on this, but the magpies would love that!
Thafor all you do!
Annie
I am thinking this may be how I approach the Christmas season. I usually swap out my fall colors for the month of December. Heavier on the reds and greens with my navy, black and denim. Then I regroup on January for the winter. I have some special pieces in red and green I love to wear and that way I feel like I have a different wardrobe for a bit and then the winter season of clothes doesn’t seem too long!
For those of us who dress in “the Christmas colors,” this is a really good idea. Get those red and green things front and center by the day before Thanksgiving (in the US, of course), and wear them A LOT!
hugs,
Janice
This, too is brilliant. I might also do something with pumpkin and rust for October and November!
I’m going to do this again in a couple of weeks, and rust is clearly on my radar as an accent color. Now, to isolate what neutrals…
hugs,
Janice
I just can’t get over how brilliant this seems. Please don’t pull another way to group/organize our wardrobes until I can let this one really sink in and develop! (You mentioned that they were in your brain just lurking). Thank you thank you thank you!!!
I think I’m going to be hanging around with this concept for a while; it seems to have struck a chord with many of us, and it has all kinds of applications…
hugs,
Janice
I could see doing this with all KINDS of color schemes!
This is such an awesome concept. Thank you Janice for making my life easier getting dressed. I have a closet I love but some days are still hard pulling it all together lol.
Janice, I’m a teacher in rural Maine and this group has my name written all over it. When I taught school in an affluent, suburban school, jeans were not on our approved dress code list. Here in rural Maine, I still want to look professional, but I also want to be location appropriate. I’m obsessed with this capsule and will be able to pull about 90% of it from pieces I already own. That being said, those denim booties are calling my name!
I was thinking of you when I picked a lot of these things! I’m glad you’re enjoying Maine…
lots of love,
Janice
Does anyone have any experience with Earth shoes? I’m not familiar with this brand. I like the loafers in the burgundy additions.
Those caught my eye, too! I have a pair of Earth sandals that I’ve had since 2017 that are super comfy and have held up well.
Janice,
While pulling a yellow twin set from my closet this morning, I was imagining it as one of the accents with this same denim and brown core. What other accent colors might you put with this denim and brown ? Perhaps peach and rust ? Coral ? Copper and bronze ? Warm red ? Purple ? Oh purple or lilac, and rust and grass green would be fun ! Darker denim and navy ? Teal ?
I’ve purchased the brown cardigan. The color is deep dark brown that goes well with many clothes in my closet. So happy I purchased it.