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Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature

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Who Won What – the Knotting Cards, and the $50 Novica Gift Card!

One of the more interesting things in life is coincidences. You KNOW, in your rational mind, that it's just a random confluence of events, but your heart wants to find a connection, or a reason, for these things to occur at just this time...

So if anybody's got a good explanation, tell me why, for BOTH random numbers I generated, the answer was 37?

I love these kinds of little events... 

AND THE WINNERS!!!

The Novica Gift card - Julie Bower

The Hermes Knotting Cards - Beatriz Fortes

Will you each please contact me at [email protected] and give me your mailing addresses? Julie, I think I can just email the card information to you, so you can start shopping immediately!

We are a lucky bunch, ... View the Post

Hermes Knotting Cards – Today’s Monday Morning Giveaway!

Leave me a message telling us all about your very favorite winter holiday food indulgence (remember, this ranges all the way from Thanksgiving through Valentine's Day - my definition of winter holiday is VERY generous...) to be entered to win these knotting cards! I'll let you know next Monday who the luck winner is.  Don't need knotting cards? These would be an excellent candidate for "regifting", you know.

ANYBODY, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD CAN WIN THIS - I WILL SHIP IT TO YOU!

Still sealed, so I can't honestly tell you what the cards will be like, but I know that they can be a source of inspiration for a new way to tie your scarves (not just for Hermes, of course!), or they can be a source of laughter when they suggest wearing a scarf ... View the Post

Monday Morning Giveaway: L’Armoire Ideale des Paresseuses

I suspect that I've given this away before - I know I've written about it!  It's a funny little guide (in fairly easy French) about building an ideal closet if you're lazy - who can't enjoy that? Copies of this float in and out of my library without explanation; I suspect they might reproduce...

The "Paresseuses" is a series of books, and a blog. Check them out; there are fewer more entertaining ways to improve your French language skills!

So leave me a comment, and please let me know what your biggest wardrobe challenge is as we move toward the "winter" holidays. (Winter in the Northern Hemisphere, but I always REALLY want to hear from those of you in other climates, please!) Sunday evening when I'm working on next Monday's ... View the Post

Start With Art: Trumpet Creeper by Abby Williams Hill

November 13, 2014   Isn't this beautiful? One of you sent it to me, and it captivated me immediately. The vertical layout, the soft background, the muted shades of green and blue, the accents of warm rust, gold and orange - what a wonderful painting.   There are so many things about this that could serve as inspiration and focus: the colors, the organic nature of the image, the soft blending of the background colors, the use of about a billion shades of bluish green - there's just no end to the ideas that can come from this one work of art. (but that's probably true, for the right person, of any work of art, right?)  

  This was my chosen color scheme - a base in very dark navy, accents of all those ... View the Post

Start With Art: Are you More Renoir or Laurencin?

November 10, 2014   Two of my favorite artists, and two subtly different approaches to the feeling of romance and femininity. Renoir is very traditionally (late 19th century) soft, ruffly, dainty floraly kind of feminine. Laurencin, very much like Chanel who is the subject of this painting, gives us a little bit sleeker vision of womanly grace and beauty.  

How do these subtle differences translate into your personal style - your choices of accessories and garments? Both are beautiful and appealing, but there are substantial differences, if we study the paintings long enough. These were some of my thoughts:

For jewelry, Renoir art gives me the feeling of delicate, carefully jeweled pieces with a lot of detail, and a ... View the Post

Start With Art: A Shelf of Books -> a Summer Wardrobe

November 7, 2014   You really, seriously, can get inspiration anywhere, if you keep your eyes and your aesthetic heart open to what's out there.  This absolutely wonderful picture was sent to me - what a delightful mix of softly faded colors.  

    It wasn't at all hard to come up with a color scheme.  Many of you ask about how I build color wheels - I use the graphing gizmo in PowerPoint.  I use PowerPoint for all of my vignettes, because it does everything I need.  Just insert a graph into a slide, and then change the colors and sizes of the various wedges to suit your preferences. You have a new, beautiful mnemonic for your wardrobe colors, AND you have a new skill to put on your ... View the Post

Start With Art: Call of the Loon by Ewoud de Groot

November 6, 2014  

There's a lot of beauty here, and colors galore...

 

I settled on these, using ink blue as my base neutral.  Realistically, you could choose anything soft and muted in the green/blue/purple family and be extremely successful.

 

This is for someone subdued, a little bit dressy, going away for a couple of days to a warmer destination.  Maybe not the beach, but someplace where lighter fabrics will be comfortable.  The dotted texture of the water is echoed in the first scarf, and the floral earring and pewter loafers are feminine but not girlish.  

A linen dress, a silk skirt and a couple of tops, along with some pretty accessories are all you ... View the Post

Start With Art: Flowers from Rosablue – a Four Pack for Business

Turns out that this beautiful thing is from Rosablue, who prints her own fabrics...  

    Beyond the very obvious black background, there are quite a few colors in here that could come to the fore in a color scheme. How about black, white, and the orange and green?  Or black, pale green, pale blue, and soft pink?  But for today, I've chosen these colors:    

  As a woman in search of a red duffle coat, I'm drawn to all red coats right now, so that seemed a reasonable place to start. In my mind, the person in this vignette is heading out of town for a day of two of business meetings in which the people being visited have to do the impressing - her job is just to sit quietly and evaluate ... View the Post

Start With Nature: Bird’s Eggs photograph from Kevin Fleming Photography

November 3, 2014  

Someone sent me this gorgeous photograph... I've flipped it sideways so that I could put up a bigger image...

This was my chosen color scheme:  

  It's hard to introduce "egg-like" elements into a wardrobe, but I did stick with rounded earrings, and I aimed for a sort of softness and subtlety that would honor the gorgeousness of the photograph.  

  I introduced the most subtle greenish color to blend with the warm beige, tan and brown already here.  It's an amazingly effective combination, I think.  

  To me, these combinations are warm, gentle, and comfortable.  

love, Janice ... View the Post

Start With Nature: Panicum Shenendoah, aka switchgrass… a Four Pack

October 28, 2014

  So what do you do if your favorite color scheme includes colors that are just plain difficult to wear together?  This beautiful grass (growing in the Lurie Garden, about a 10 minute walk from chez nous) includes some striking colors, but it isn't at all simple to find ANYTHING, clothes or accessories, that include the two colors...  

  But these are really pretty...  

  So you just have to accept that you might wear them separately most of the time, until and unless you find things that bring the colors together.  As long as you stick with your neutral core, these kinds of "color conundrums" aren't really limiting!  

 

  love, Janice ... View the Post

It’s all about packing…

This is a cheery six pack to look at on a grey day... especially since I felt the first snowflake this morning!

Check up at the top of the page - the Packing links are there!  I'm going to be working a bit more on them...  A lot of them refer to guest-posting that I did on another blog; I'm going to revise those links to take you directly to the full post, on the other site.  But for now, I think you'll find LOTS to inspire you to start pricing plane tickets! love, Janice ... View the Post