Art Archives

August 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Ruffled Autumn Clouds by Emile Nolde

August 7, 2026

Let's check in our bank employee, with career goals clearly in her focus! She's chosen to dress in a manner reflective of the way the upper executives dress, while still keeping a foot firmly planted in her current position. It's a balancing act to clearly appear "promotion-worthy" while at the same time not alienating or offending your current co-workers...

In order to help her in her focus and shopping discipline, our heroine has chosen this painting and color palette as her wardrobe inspiration:

Before any August shopping, our heroine already has 32 pieces in her wardrobe. She's never at a loss as to what to wear!

A big reason that she dresses with ease every day is that she has a GREAT assortment of ... View the Post

August 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Winter Cottonwoods by Georgia O’Keeffe

August 5, 2026

So now that stores are filling up with clothes, I'm going to look at all six of our wardrobes and try to fill in gaps and find some balance for our heroines.

Our next painting is a favorite of our landscaping expert, who is most comfortable wearing mostly subtle colors found in nature:

Coming into August, our heroine had this lovely wardrobe, but it really doesn't reflect that she planned to use grey as an equal neutral with shades of brown. Hmm....

Her accessories are gorgeous...

Our heroine has four grey garments, and an ivory tee shirt. These are all excellent garments, but she's interested in looking for more grey. Oddly, it can be the most difficult color to find!

But since Autumn is ... View the Post

August 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Lonely Erika Giovanna Klien

August 3, 2026

Time to drop in on our graphic and typography expert. You just have to imagine that she has a clear view of how things look on paper or on screen; that doesn't necessarily translate into a crispy-edited wardrobe! But we are doing our best for her...

First, her beautiful painting inspiration:

By the end of July, we had migrated her wardrobe onto a 56-piece wardrobe template:

This is how it looks in a color-sorted, more relaxed view. Sometimes the grid is the most helpful, and at other times you need the more "mixey" look at things:

There's no grid for accessories! I've been thinking about a plan for accessories for at least 15 years, and I still conclude that they're the really personal part of a ... View the Post

A Radical Approach to Cleaning Out Your Closet

August 2, 2026

Yes, I never post on Sundays. But I've had an idea kicking around in my head for a few weeks, and I wanted to put it into words. This helps me clarify my thoughts, and feedback from you helps me refine my ideas!

We're always seeing the same "Wardrobe Clear-out" advice:

take everything out of your closet try everything on sort it all into three piles - Keep, Repair or Alter, Donate

And then you're going to have the perfect wardrobe...

My issues with this are many - who is REALLY going to put every stitch of clothing that they own on their bed (or the floor!) and sort it out? Who's got time? Who's got patience?

Further, it worries me that we're donating clothes that are still appealing to us, but that ... View the Post

Accessories! Bringing Life to the Rising Green by Lee Krasner 4 by 4 Wardrobe

July 31, 2026

It's the end of July. I'm not quite ready for the end of summer, are you?

You may remember our friend who has an upcoming responsibility to be an election observer. This will be - of course - in November. She doesn't know how long she will be gone; she's been told it could be for 5 days to 2 weeks. Happily, she WILL be in a place where laundry will be possible!

She's decided to use this most lovely painting to inspire her travel capsule wardrobe:

This is the wardrobe that she's packing - I have a hunch that she's been told that it might be warm some of the time she's at her assigned destination? Weather is one of the things that can make it almost impossible to plan a wardrobe more than a day or two before ... View the Post

Back to the Casual Office this Fall? Start With Art: Cityscape by Alice Neel

July 27, 2026

The email was not unexpected, but she still wasn't thrilled to read it - everybody should be IN THE OFFICE three days a week, starting at the beginning of September...

She hasn't been in the office on a regular basis in years. Literally.

So she's going to plan a small work wardrobe that will see her through three days a week without a lot of thinking. Just making the trip back and forth is going to be quite enough additional effort!

She's got green eyes, lots of freckles, dark reddish brown hair, and a fondness for autumn colors. Her inspiration is going to be this:

Unlike so many other wardrobe plans, this one's starting with accent colors! When our heroine found both burgundy (that delightful Fig color ... View the Post

Start with Art – Tulips by Susan Jane Walp

July 24, 2026

She has room in her bedroom to hang 16 garments. Well, maybe 20, but certainly not more than that! Her clothes live in an ante-room off the main part of the attic. Old houses...

Her plan for the upcoming cool weather is to build a 4 by 4 Wardrobe of casual clothes; she wears a uniform for work, so this is the majority of what she will need for her personal life.

She wants this mix of colors:

She chose her color palette partly because she already has quite a few garments in these colors! One should always start a wardrobe (travel, seasonal, stress-dressing) with clothes you already have and like!

Our heroine is going to use the 4 by 4 Wardrobe Template to keep herself organized; it's easy to grab a ... View the Post

A “Formula” Color Palette Starting with Navy, and Starting With Art!

July 20, 2026

I used this painting here on The Vivienne Files back in April of 2020. Doesn't that seem like a century ago?

This color palette comes up at a great time - one among you is going to be an election observer in a town A LONG WAY FROM HOME. And it's expected that she will have to be there for anything from 5 to 14 days. Sounds fun, eh?

But to be practical, she wants to avoid both bright blue and bright red clothes, she doesn't want to be TOO dressy, but she wants to be able to dress up if it is necessary.

I always start a travel wardrobe with a cluster of clothing that could be worn (along with a travel outfit) in a lot of different ways. In theory, one could survive a trip with 8 or 9 garments, presuming that some ... View the Post

Can There Be a Template for Wardrobe Color Schemes?

July 20, 2026

I should be in Dublin when you read this. Yes. Back to Europe. Sometimes my plans aren't the most efficient, or the most restful. But packing repeatedly makes me think of planning, and being organized...

Just over two years ago, I introduced you to this painting and this palette. I think it's safe to say that for at least the current while, this is my signature palette:

I've been thinking for a while that pretty much any wardrobe could "come together" around a color palette that included two neutrals, two accents and denim. (your definition of neutral and accent is up to you - if pink and purple are your neutrals, I'm not going to tell you it's wrong!)

So I put denim blue at the base, literally, of this graph, ... View the Post

July 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Lonely Erika Giovanna Klien

July 13, 2026

Let's pause for a moment and admire the amazing details in this painting - the marbled, denim-colored areas, the subtle letters that spell out "einsam", the little flashes of green and blue. It all looks simple at first, but you and I both know that it's a lot harder than it seems:

Halfway through the year, our heroine the text design specialist had this wardrobe. I love that we can clearly see her fondness for button-front shirt and tee shirts. All of our wardrobes should reflect our strong preferences!

These are her accessories, coming into July. The green shoes keep catching my eye, in a good way:

As with so many of us, our heroine has cool clothes in mind this month. Finding the tote bag was a ... View the Post

July 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Saints Genevieve and Apollonia by Lucas Cranach the Elder

July 10, 2026

Our researcher of all things Gothic architectural detail is in Paris. Melting. Loving her small borrowed apartment with air conditioning...

First up, let's savor her signature work of art - the painting from which she draws her color palette, and the serene grace that she tries to emulate in her life:

some day I'm going to be a pub quiz in which they hold up photographs of paintings and ask "who's the artist". I'm going to OWN that pub....

At the end of June, our heroine had this wardrobe. She clearly has some great things to wear in hot weather, which is a good thing!

This was her accessory collection. So bright, so pretty, so useful!

She's looking for another outfit that she can wear in the ... View the Post

July 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Common Shelduck by Dennis A. Jones

July 8, 2026

Our heroine is spending this month, and part of next month, hanging out at a small rural college in Vermont, where fervent bird-counting is underway! Happily, her responsibility is tallying numbers, and NOT sitting out in a concealed shelter for hours and hours...

She takes her inspiration, and finds her discipline, in this photograph:

Coming into the month of July, this was our heroine's 28-piece wardrobe. She didn't bring all of this with her to Vermont...

Neither did she bring all of her accessories. I could easily justify ONE pair of boots for any trip at any time, but two pairs of boots, in July, in North America?

This month's wardrobe additions reflect our heroine's rural, hot ... View the Post