for Travel Archives - Page 33 of 54

How to Pack for a Long Weekend Graduation Trip

June 1, 2016

One of the reasons that I'm taking this hiatus is that I've got two trips in the month of June, which were weighing heavy on my mind...First up, a very quick dash through New York City, to Vermont, then BACK to New York to fly back to Chicago. There's a very important college graduation in there, somewhere...

I have to tell you something amazing - we're leaving in 4 hours or so, and I'm not packed! But I think I've got it figured out.

My goal here, uncluttered simplicity, without sacrificing looking appropriately dressy for the solemn occasions...

(can someone explain to me why this suitcase is a man's bag? what folly...)

I'm packing silk pants, a silk tank, and a silk tee shirt, in order to ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with a Scarf: Ted Baker’s Dreams Scope

May 17, 2016 She's so smitten with the scarf that she decided to plan her entire trip around the colors she found in it!

Every Year They go back to the little town in which their wedding took place. For the most part, it's a very casual long weekend, spent walking around the lake, browsing in used bookstores, or maybe taking in an estate sale...

But every year, on Saturday evening of their weekend together, they go back to the place where they were married. And they repeat their vows...

This year, she's going to remind him that beautiful brides come at every age...

love, Janice ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Composition by Natalia S. Gontcharova

May 26, 2016 Okay, I'm more than a little bit smitten with Ms. Gontcharova's work...

For someone who wanted to base their entire wardrobe around this work, there's also a bit of green in here:

When I Am An Old Woman... (blah, blah, blah) Yes, we know, you'll wear purple. But she's been wearing purple FOREVER...

She wears every shade of it. She buys her entire wardrobe with an eye to how well it will work with "her" color...

And she mixes multiple shades of purple without hesitation, and without apology.

Someone once told her that she had eyes like Elizabeth Taylor's; but she knows that it was only the reflection from ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: 2nd of the Portraits Theatraux by Natalia S. Gontcharova

May 25, 2016 I don't know how many of these Ms. Gontcharova did, but I'm going to try to find them all:

Not a color scheme we see every day! I opted to use pure white, rather than try to match that "faded paper" color. My assumption is that the original might have been on white paper - can anybody confirm or deny?

She Yins, She Yangs "Do you think she's completely... normal? I mean, sometimes she looks so aggressive, and other days she's just so calm and quiet..."

"I don't know if she's normal or not, but she must have a GIGANTIC wardrobe..."

"And EVERY Friday, she's got that tote bag with her... Who's she kidding - she goes away EVERY ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Noon – Rest from Work by Vincent van Gogh

May 24, 2016

So beautiful:

And a color scheme that includes extremely warm and very cool colors, with enough neutral off-white to give a base to everything:

Why yes, you DID see this travel outfit (with a few tweaks) just a few days ago, here. I didn't include it just to be lazy - I wanted to show that there's a lot of versatility in just a few pieces of clothing, and that you could easily merge a couple of different color-schemes to design your perfect capsule wardrobe.

Everything here from a sun hat to warm scarves! But when you expect to go out in sunny warm temperatures during the day, and then sit around a fire after dark when the temperatures dip, you have to be ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Study for the Muses by Brice Marden

May 20, 2016

This lives just down the street from me, at the Art Institute of Chicago. I'm quite taken with it:

I could have included all three accent colors, but I wanted to think about a small, long-weekend packing wardrobe, so I limited myself to these two glorious shades:

Off Season "You can't go to the beach house NOW! You'll never be able to go outside..."

It is possible to dress warmly. And just because the calendar doesn't specify "beach" anywhere, doesn't meant that it's going to snow! The weather is often very lovely this time of year...

Yes, she seems rather feminine - pastels, round collars on her shirts, the whole "girly" 9 yards. But that doesn't mean that she's ... View the Post

A Six Pack Travel Capsule Wardrobe: Red, White and Blue for Uncertain Weather

May 17, 2016

Sunday, when B and I went out for our usual breakfast and Art Institute visit, we wore jackets and gloves. Yes, May 15th, we wore gloves!

I felt terrible for the people who had scheduled an outdoor wedding, and also for the hundreds of tourists who were caught completely off guard by the record-tying coldest May 15th in history.

So I'm going to reiterate, one more time, that no matter WHERE you are going, no matter WHAT time of year, you should always include a few essential items. Closed-toe shoes, a pair of socks, long pants, and a long-sleeved shirt might never make it out of your suitcase, but if you encounter the kind of weather that we've had here recently, you'll be endlessly glad to have them.

If ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Portraits Theatraux by Natalia S. Gontcharova

May 13, 2016

I saw these in Paris, and was immediately captivated!

The color combination here opens up the possibility of lots of unexpected juxtapositions, which is always fun:

It's good to be surprising... She has a man's first name. She's had it her entire life, and she uses it to her advantage, especially when traveling for business...

When she arrives, everyone is already a little bit panicked, because she's an auditor. And then they're expecting a man, so she REALLY catches them off guard...

And this works to her advantage. She's supposed to find the things that they don't want to have found, and when they're busy bustling about coming to grips with the fact ... View the Post

3-Dress Packing for a Business Trip

May 9, 2016 You asked, you get!

Pants – J. Crew; blouse – Carven; earrings – Ippolita; briefcase – Lodis; shoes – Patricia Green; cardigan – L.L.Bean; scarf – Nordstrom; watch – Movado; carry-on garment bag – Travelpro I Felt Like the Secret Weapon...

Blue print dress – Austin Reed; pumps – Calvin Klein; necklace – Majorica; earrings – Jude Frances; black dress – Lands’ End; black print dress – Austin Reed; star earrings – Salvador Jouhayerk; clutch bag – Whiting and Davis; strap pumps – Trotters; cardigan – Lands’ End; tee shirt – Uniqlo

Everybody else traveling for the presentation was male. Wearing a suit, white shirt, and a tie... I felt a little bit conspicuous, but since I ... View the Post

A 2nd 3-Dress Travel Capsule Wardrobe

May 3, 2016 Unprecedented They were always really nice about it; her nephew always sent her the "Annual Beach House Room Reservation Worksheet," just as if she was going to be there for at least a weekend or two.

But she never went. Until now.

When the email arrived, she took the single room, for the Memorial Day Weekend. Shock waves reverberated around the extended family!

She realized that the things that kept her away weren't really "deal-killers" after all!

It's possible to have a perfectly nice beach vacation without actually swimming...

Nobody is contractually obliged to wear shorts at any time in their life...

And you can walk in the surf while wearing shoes. In fact, one ... View the Post

A 3-Dress Travel Capsule Wardrobe

April 29, 2016

My 3-dress capsule wardrobe worked so well in Paris that I thought I would experiment with some different ways to pack with dresses as the primary garments...

Imagine, if you will, someone who buys a cardigan that they love. Bright colors, a print she adores, and excellent quality. So when she's invited to a wedding weekend out of town, it only makes sense to build EVERYTHING around this sweater:

She knows that there will be a dinner party 2 days before the wedding, and then the rehearsal dinner (to which she is invited), and the the wedding and reception. THREE days of events which have been described to her as "dressy."

She's a bit uneasy about just exactly what is meant ... View the Post

The Power of Accent Colors in the Capsule Wardrobe: Blush and Turquoise

April 20, 2016

When I was working on yesterday's post, with the yellow accent colors my mother commented (quite rightly) that any number of accent colors would work beautifully with the black, white, and tweed pieces of clothing.

So...

At a loss as to how to choose the colors to use for my capsule wardrobe experiment, I grabbed my brand new color analysis book that I bought it Paris, and I opened it with my eyes closed. Twice!

First, I found peachy, pinky, blush:

The whole feel of this outfit changes completely, with just a different scarf and earrings! Think of the relatively inexpensive possibilities...

Here, four more pieces are changed: a blouse, a sweater, a scarf and a bracelet. This feels so ... View the Post