Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature
August 7, 2017
If you've got a dress that you dearly love, but you're wondering if you're going to be able to wear it when the weather cools down (in the Northern Hemisphere), let me suggest that you look at an earlier post of mine, where I show a navy dress with a whole BUNCH of very muted, autumn-ish accessories....
The power of a simple dress is easy to under-estimate, until you get one in your closet and really put it to work!
love, Janice ... View the Post
August 4, 2017
This time of year it's easy to begin to be tired of our current wardrobe, and this weariness is just compounded by the fact that stores are beginning to be filled with clothes for the upcoming season. What's an intelligent woman to do?
I'm suggesting, for those of us who wear dresses, that we get a new dress. Something timeless and simple, in a color that we don't always wear. Think about your existing "Accessory Families" and choose a dress that can be worn with things that you already love...
I've done a LOT of posts in the past about dresses - today I'm specifically thinking about this post about a navy dress with pastel accessories. A navy dress - or any dark neutral colored dress - can be worn to pieces ... View the Post
February 20, 2017
Someone sent me a link to this beauty... What excellent colors!
This bag includes a bunch of the classic neutral colors - beige, white, shades of rust into dark brown, maybe some black? I'm deliberately NOT including any sort of style guidelines here because I think that this is a case in which a wide variety of personal styles could accommodate this bag.
I'm going to focus pretty much on warm-weather attire here, but imagine for cooler weather - a navy winter coat with camel trousers... a navy wool skirt with an ivory sweater and brown riding boots.... mmm....
This is sort of a styling free for all - I just let my imagination wander toward whatever outfits I would like to wear, or that would be fun for ... View the Post
February 3, 2017
I have no idea why it's called "Bavarian Cream." I had no idea that the cream there was in some way special...
Today is the last version of the "start with a patterned cardigan" idea, with more complete explanations of what I'm doing with these cardigans. (brace yourself - I get pretty carried away explaining my methodology here!) This cardigan was chosen because one of you who is contemplating the purchase on this one felt that the colors might prove to be too autumn-like...
For what it's worth, upon close study, I think that these colors are pretty safely seasonless; one might be reluctant to wear a pair of cream wool crepe trousers in February (nasty salt splashes = ruined garment!), but for the most part, ... View the Post
February 2, 2017
Groundhog Day! (in the US - does anybody else depend upon rodents for long-term weather forecasts?)
And you might feel like Groundhog Day, The Movie, because this idea looks really familiar. Remember the Dandelion Cardigan capsule wardrobe you just saw on Tuesday? Well, someone went wandering on the Lands' End website, and discovered this:
Bright Burgundy Floral Cardigan – Lands’ End
She was particularly interested in seeing how this worked with navy, so I thought another trip or two through this concept might be helpful...
First up, her preferred navy (which is indeed present in small doses in the cardigan) and ivory are the core neutrals, and then the vivid red (which I wouldn't have ... View the Post
January 31, 2017
One of you has fallen in love....With a cardigan! And you're somewhat concerned that you won't wear it enough to make it worth the purchase...
This is the winsome object of her affections:
She assures me that she really loves the yellow, but has never worn it. And she's very devoted to her black and white neutrals:
I don't think she's going to have any problems at all - realistically, I think she need to maybe buy 1 thing for each of these outfits to pull everything together.In these first 2 outfits, she'll want to grab those delicious sandals, and the bracelets will be essential...
Another pair of yellow sandals might be overdoing it. Maybe. And the yellow tee shirt - assuming ... View the Post
September 2, 2016
One last adventure with this dress - this time, with muted accent colors like olive, burgundy, and mustard! (I have been hungry 24/7 for a week...)
You might notice more or less immediately that I'm reusing a TON of accessories from the recent post with the grey dress. I'm not doing this because I'm lazy, (well...) but because it all fell into place, unexpectedly.
When I put together posts like this, which are variations of previous posts, I reuse the original PowerPoint file. For this, I went through each page, deleted the original grey dress, and pasted in the navy dress. Then I changed the color of the divider stars... It was only when I went to the next step - changing the accessories - that I realized that I ... View the Post
August 31, 2016
I always intended to do 3 posts with this dress, yesterday's pastels, today's bright colors, and on Friday I'm going to look at some muted shades... (tomorrow is the first of the month - time to revisit those "1 Outfit per Month" wardrobes!) So today, I changed the shoes, but kept to the same general theme of working through a range of colors.
(These seven images look really great together on my computer; I don't often notice this, but I've got this lovely rainbow running down the side of my desktop right now...)
The color spectrum isn't quite the same as yesterday, but I still worked my way around the color wheel. Doing this ensures that I don't miss any possibilities; it's something to consider when you're looking ... View the Post
August 30, 2016
This is a great dress - it appears to be fairly trimly cut until it reaches the hips, and then swish!
I took a little bit different approach to this dress - I found simple, classic navy shoes that I've included with all of the pastel colors. And there's a pretty straightforward formula for these - I looked for scarves, bracelets, earrings, necklaces and bags in the accent color, and then chose the pieces that I liked the most! My criteria were pretty much that the accessories should be as close in color to the cardigan as reasonably possible, and that they share a feeling or aesthetic. (that last part is hard to define, but I know what I like when I see it!)
This is an obvious color scheme, if you ... View the Post
August 22, 2016 I love doing these... and this dress just calls my name. How can I NOT own this in black? This dress also comes in yellow (remember last week's post about a yellow dress?), black, and raspberry, which is a gorgeous rich hot pink... sigh...
It probably doesn't amaze you to learn that when I do similar blog posts, I reuse the original template, and just make the appropriate changes. So after I went into this template and changed the dividers in the middle from red to yellow, I removed the yellow dress from every page, and just plunked the red dress in...And didn't have to change ONE THING, for these two options! How many different colors could work here? Certainly the black dress would be perfect ... View the Post
May 12, 2016
This is just a "flipped over" version of the white blazer and navy trouser, but quite a bit more casual and relaxed. And I chose all button-front shirts, just to show the range of possibilities available!
Our very simple starting point:
You can wear any possible shade of red, pink, coral, blush, or whatever else the fashion people name these colors:
All kinds of orange are equally lovely:
If you like yellow, this is a good, classic base with which to wear it!
I really like the looks of both the mint and the dark olive here - very different colors, but equally at home in this ensemble.
Turquoise, because... well, ... View the Post
May 10, 2016
Because one of you asked for my help with something, I'm breaking a long-standing rule here at The Vivienne Files...
Normally, I only show garments that don't include a model; I find that I'd rather see what the clothes look like, without being pinned and taped and yanked around to suit the model. But in this case, the jacket was key...
The request was for a travel capsule wardrobe for a 2 month work trip, over a number of climates, and built around this jacket:
This is a wardrobe that will really come into its own with accessories, I'm sure you can see. But I felt that it was important to start with a very neutral base. It gives us this color scheme:
Sticking with the idea ... View the Post
