Whatever's Clean 13 Archives - Page 2 of 8

Start with Art: Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Revisiting Jack Pine by Tom Thomson

May 16, 2018

Someone asked me to revisit this most striking of paintings... Years ago I showed some outfits that were based on this work, but it's well worth returning to works of art from time to time. If you choose a work of art or other lovely image/object to be your style inspiration, you'll be coming back to it often, so why shouldn't we do the same here on The Vivienne Files?

As much as brown plays a really big role in the painting, I've chosen to not include brown in this wardrobe because it's terribly difficult to find for spring and summer! If you've got a good source of beautiful brown garments for warm weather, take advantage! That's the only way these colors will move back into the marketplace...

I'm imagining that ... View the Post

Traveling with Children? Pack a “Whatever’s Clean 13” Wardrobe!

Let's see how this new version of The Vivienne Files works, shall we?

It's a question I hear from time to time - I'm traveling with small children, and I want to pack something bright and cheery. I also get questions about packing with printed or patterned pants, skirts and shorts - I'm going to throw that variable into this mix too!

This is a pretty bold way to start a wardrobe! But it will work, if we're intelligent and thoughtful...

First up, let's pull out our "Whatever's Clean 13" template to make sure that this plan stays on track:

It might behoove us to come up with a color scheme, before this goes completely crazy! I'm nominating navy as a neutral for this wardrobe, because navy is a great, classic neutral for ... View the Post

The Easiest Way to Get Dressed? Find Your Personal Uniform!

March 29, 2018 I've seen him twice in the Pedway in downtown Chicago. The first time, he was wearing black jeans, some sort of white shirt, and a RED VELVET TUXEDO JACKET. In the middle of the day, in the middle of the business district. And he looked amazingly cool...He's average height, very slender, young, and quite nice. (Yes, the 2nd time I saw him, I had to stop him and compliment him...)The 2nd time I saw him, he was wearing a white shirt and black jeans again, but this time his jacket was BLUE BROCADE. It's a uniform, and it's his!

Of course this got me thinking how this might translate for all of us...

Say you have this outfit, and you love it:

This would be so easy to build - when you see a jacket that you love, you ... View the Post

Build a Foolproof Travel Wardrobe by Starting with Science: The Heart Nebula by Peter Jenkins

September 27, 2017

Just doesn't get much prettier than this, I'd say!

She's Always Hated Shopping... From the time she was a child - so she and her mother devised a wardrobe plan for her...

They picked the colors they would use, and they decided how many of each piece she would need... She's really never deviated meaningfully from the original scheme!

When she began to buy her own clothes, she realized that if she bought the really good stuff, she wouldn't have to shop nearly as often - the time saved was precious, and the ability to wear beautiful clothes was just a bonus...

One of the beauties of having had a plan for years and YEARS is that she can spot something that will suit her a mile away ... View the Post

Can You Plan Your ENTIRE Wardrobe? Maybe…

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was pondering what it would mean if you used four "Whatever's Clean 13" wardrobes for your year-round wardrobe. I'm still in the "thinking about the possibilities" stages, but I wanted to share with you what I've been thinking, so far...

At the beginning, I'm starting with the original 13-piece "Whatever's Clean" wardrobe. The idea behind these 13 pieces was that they would be chosen in such a way that you literally could NOT put together an outfit that would clash; all of the colors and styles would harmonize to the point that you could, literally, wear "Whatever's Clean." (I was thinking of travel, or vacationing at a cabin, beach house etc...)

Just in order to make sure that I could fit lots ... View the Post

Building a Travel Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Paysage Algérien by Renoir

July 12, 2017

It surprises me that this painting is from Renoir - I always think of him with pastels or clear and cool bright colors. But this is perfect for our current "neutral experiment": it's got navy and beige, and some great rust and green accents! It's easy to think of these as autumn colors, but if you've ever traveled to (or lived in) a hot and arid summer climate, you know that things start to get rusty and deeply green by mid-summer:

So They Bought a Camper... She never, in her life, would have imagined this. But when they sat down together and made a list of where the wanted to travel, now that they were retired, it looked like:

Fly to X, rent car, drive to Y Fly to Z, rent car, drive to A...

OVER AND ... View the Post

The Power of Accessories in a Travel Capsule Wardrobe; Start with a Scarf – Flower Burst by Kathkath

May 16, 2017

I've known the power of a good accessory for DECADES...

The "foolproof travel wardrobe" that came from the colors and the themes of the Flower Burst scarf by Kathkath was very coherent, but cried out for a few more pieces...

Here's where we started:

This was the wardrobe that we had for our flower lover, when we finished off her "Whatever's Clean 13":

Just for reference, this was the template upon which I was building:

And this is how the clothing fit into the template:

I wanted to find a really methodical, organized way of accessorizing this wardrobe, so I thought that I might work my way through five outfits (one for each of the "bottoms") and make certain that these outfits covered ... View the Post

How Can You Pack a Foolproof Travel Wardrobe? Use the Whatever’s Clean System!

May 9, 2017

I can always tell when a lot of you are planning travel because I start to see more and more emails with packing questions. Many people want a wardrobe that they don't really have to think about once they've arrived at their destination; that's why I cooked up the idea of a "Whatever's Clean" Wardrobe. If all goes according to plan, you should be able to pull any available garments from these wardrobes and assemble a reasonably presentable outfit. Certainly, some combinations are going to be better than others, and you're going to like some outfits more than others, but overall, you've got mountains of flexibility, after doing a bit of strategic thinking...

First off, let's start with a great color inspiration - ... View the Post

How to Pick Accessories for a Grey-Based Wardrobe – Start With Art: Paris Dreaming by Peter Rumney

February 15, 2017

You might remember that yesterday we were looking at this very pretty painting and building a wee wardrobe around it:

And that we left that post with this capsule wardrobe assembled using our backbone template:

There's an interesting conundrum around the idea of accessorizing this wardrobe - it's inherent in the very different two "sides" of the template: bright vs neutral. One the one hand, a few bright accessories are going to be good fun to complement the bright blouses and sweater that I've included. However, you don't ever want to go overboard in that direction, because you can end up looking a bit cartoonish, and you don't want to leave your "all-neutral" outfits without any jewelry, ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe with a Backbone – Start with Art: Paris Dreaming by Peter Rumney

February 14, 2017

I'm long overdue to make something clear - your choice of wardrobe inspiration does NOT have to be some work of fine art, nor some fabulous creature from nature. If you're inspired by a work of art that's frankly commercial and designed simply to be pleasant and decorative, you should apologize to NOBODY!

For example, someone brought this artist to my attention:

This painting is very romantic, which is perfect for today, and it brings to us a delightful color scheme:

This is a great scheme if you sometimes want a dash of bright color in your outfit, but if you also want to have the option of wearing shades of grey. Let's see how that actually works when I put real clothes into the backbone template we built ... View the Post

How to Accessorize a Capsule Wardrobe: Head by Pablo Picasso

This is really growing on me! Remember, on Friday, we started with the painting, "Head" by Picasso (which you may or may not really love - that's certainly up to you!):

Which, through a couple of steps of planning and shopping, gave us this 13-piece capsule or travel wardrobe. This is a wardrobe that's extremely versatile, giving you appropriate things to wear for every activity from a nice evening out to a hike in the park!

Cardigan– Scaglione; long-sleeved tee – Uniqlo; sweater – Uniqlo; tee – River Island; skirt– J. Crew; pants – J. Crew; jeans – L.L.Bean;

capris – L.L.Bean; shorts – Patagonia; long-sleeved tee – Uniqlo; shirt – Lands’ End ;sleeveless top – L.L.Bean

I also ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe with a Backbone by Starting with Art: Head by Pablo Picasso

February 10, 2017

Since I've had a lot of time to think recently, I've been tinkering around, in my mind, with different approaches to building a capsule wardrobe.

Many of us like to keep the bottom half of our body dressed in neutrals, either because of concerns about our bodily contours, or just because we like the way it looks. So I pondered the possibilities of putting together a wardrobe that was based upon a core of neutral "bottoms."

This is how I'm picturing it:

My thesis is that we can put the solid bottoms down the middle of this template, to form the "backbone" of my capsule wardrobe, and then fill in the accent pieces on either side. And just for fun, let's use a particularly excellent color scheme, based ... View the Post