November 17, 2025
Our heroine is back to business travel… but no matter why she’s packing, or where she’s going, she always stick with her inspiration:
Her complete wardrobe is mostly these four colors:
And she has realized that if she omits one color from these four, she has four ADDITIONAL palettes that are ideally suited for small travel capsule wardrobes:
It’s business travel again, but to an office that she knows pretty well. This trip is not particularly dressy, but there are excellent restaurants near them, so she still wants to be able to dress appropriately for that!
And her last trip, when she wore her velvet blazer, was full of excellent customer service. Thus she’s wearing it again! Get your money’s worth from your clothes, right?
Silk shirt – Boden; carnelian earrings – The Met Store; black velvet blazer – J.Crew; silk scarf – Emily Carter; tote – Longchamp; socks – Jenni Kayne; black jeans – J.Crew; boots – Gentle Souls
She’s packing mostly black and ivory, with just a couple of tops in rust, as well as a couple of great scarves and another pair of carnelian earrings…
gold link earrings – J.Crew; carnelian earrings – Bounkit; black floral scarf – Echo; black stud earrings – Lutiro; ivory cardigan – L.L.Bean; rust cardigan – Alex Mill; floral top – Caslon; ivory cords – J.Crew; dotted scarf – Echo; black silk shirt – Alex Mill; tuxedo pants – J.Crew; sneakers – Dolce Vita; small black bag – J.Crew; black loafers – J.Crew
She’s delighted with how her complete travel wardrobe looks:
This – as with many small travel wardrobes – is pretty much foolproof! But let’s look at a few ways she can get dressed:
The more I look at six-piece travel capsule wardrobes, the more I’m thinking I’m taking something along these lines to Paris next month…
love,
Janice
p.s. Ten years ago, we started with a Pre-Raphaelite painting of Echo and Narcissus by Waterhouse… a lovely painting, and a great wardrobe!
Like this wardrobe? Save it to Pinterest.
I travel twice a month for business and/or pleasure and living by these six-piece travel capsules in four neutrals. They really work well!
Thus far, this has been my favorite painting and my favorite grouping of clothes. I love that this is envisioned for a businesswoman who travels. But, I can see this group as being just as essential for a woman whose work keeps her closer to home. It’s polished and professional, and yet relaxed and comfortable. I would wear every single piece! Me? I’d exchange one pair of black pants for a black skirt to be worn with tights and the booties. But, that’s the beauty here…it’s easily adaptable. Well done, Janice!
I love this color combination series.
I want to take a pair of rust-colored pants from this capsule collection so I can wear this patterned blouse often.
Beautiful!
This series is an impressive lesson on the importance of accessories. The clothing is well chosen and the accessories direct the vibe. Congratulations on finding a print top with a nice print. The unfortunate recent trend of overly large splashy prints would overwhelm anyone under six feet tall. This one is pretty and versatile.
This is a lovely wardrobe all around. I can appreciate it even though I wear none of these colors. The accessories are everything!
That scarf is exquisite. Another great capsule.
A fun diversion for me is distilling travel capsules into simple formulas, much of which is inspired by this blog. Here we’ve been working with what I call a short-trip/weekend capsule aka the 3×3 as in 3 tops, 3 layers including 1 or 2 pivot pieces (can be worn as 1st or 2nd layers), and 3 bottoms.
Some palette options for three colors are:
Dark Neutral, Medium Neutral, Light Neutral
Dark Neutral, Light Neutral, Accent
Any Neutral, 2 accents
Add a dress and you get the Perfect 10. Wear 3 garments in transit, pack 7. Very doable if you prefer to do all carryon when flying. I also have formulas for medium trips of 13 garments (add 1 each of top, layer, and bottom) and longer trips of 16-17 garments. As the capsule expands, you can add a fourth color to the palette.
It is amazing when you do the math how many outfits you can get out of X number each of tops, layers and bottoms. Many travel influencers show travel capsules that use these formulas but I find their colors boring. This blog shows that keeping it simple can still be interesting, especially when you add a few accessories.
Love how you break this down.
I was expecting to really enjoy this series and it hasn’t disappointed. I was surprised at how much I like the first outfit with the black and ivory garments and shoes and only the accessories in rust. It’s not something I would have thought of, but I will in the future.