Start a Capsule Wardrobe With Archives - Page 62 of 133

April Travel – Start with Art: Street, Berlin by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

April 12, 2019

After retirement, they decided that they were going to travel to a new destination every 3 months for the first year! Just for a few days....

In the winter, they went somewhere warmer - I'm not sure, but it might have been Barcelona?

When our heroine and her sweetheart hatched this plot, our heroine chose this very evocative painting as her color inspiration:

Yes, April in Paris She's very excited...

Maybe a striped top is cliche to wear to Paris, but she loves her travel outfit - classic, simple, comfortable...

And since retirement is rekindling the romance in their lives, she's sticking with some pink accents. Something about pink just feels romantic to her. And her true love seems to ... View the Post

April Travel – Start with Art: Rhythmisches by Paul Klee

April 10, 2019

Ah, our friend who just got the job running a quilt museum! She's going to her first quilting conference...

Her work surrounds her with colors - brilliant colors, brilliantly combined by (mostly) women with unsung artistic skills. As much as she loves the colors, she has decided to dress more neutrally - she doesn't want to distract from the beauty of the work that she's curating. Thus, she's chosen a simple, but quite interesting, painting as her travel wardrobe inspiration:

She will be going straight into seminars as soon as she arrives, and she will be met at the airport from an official of the conference, so she's wearing a dress to fly in! (it's a short trip, in all fairness...)

In order to keep ... View the Post

April Travel: Start with Art – Briqueterie a Tortosa by Picasso

April 8, 2019

Remember our friend who designs installations for solar panels? Happy for her, she's now traveling in warm weather! No more the "leave the snow, get off the plane in sweltering heat!"

So she's packing light - just enough to visit her clients, and the construction sites...

This painting is her inspiration:

She's driving to her next clients, so she's wearing sandals on her trip! Normally, she doesn't fly in sandals...

Many of her clients can be hard to read, at first. Some of them want her to put on a hard-hat and steel-toed boots and climb ladders (she doesn't go quite that far...) and other just want to sit over a cocktail at the country club and review the plans. So she tries ... View the Post

April Travel: Start with Art – Between Breath and the River 4 by Susan Osgood

April 5, 2019

Remember our friend the flooding expert? She's very busy...

This is her art inspiration, and her wardrobe color palette:

She's traveling to the Midwest United States, to help determine where bulldozing or other changes in the immediate terrain might help clear standing water from some flood areas. She's studied the maps, and thinks that she knows what her suggestions will be. If her map analysis is correct, she only expects to be on-site for a day or two...

Still, she's not sure if she's going to have to actually go out and SEE any of the locations in question. (there's one that spot she really feels that she should visit in order to be exact about her plan for drainage...)

So she's going to have shorts, ... View the Post

April 2019 – 12 Months, 12 Outfits – Based on 6 Hermes Scarves

April 1, 2019

It's time again to revisit our six growing wardrobe based on Hermes scarves - always one of my favorite posts!

Since the weather is somewhat warmer, I'm including cropped or capri pants for all of our heroines. And since it's still cool, I'm pairing their pants with lighter weight sweaters in linen or cotton. Some shoes and a couple of pieces of jewelry finish off these simple, timeless outfits...

It's possible that this heroine is going to have too many striped things. Or is it possible?

Her wardrobe is really starting to take on a coherent feeling:

And we're finally at a point at which we can pull together a few new outfits using our new garments with pieces already in this wardrobe. THIS is when ... View the Post

Start with a Scarf: Hermès Les Nouveaux Amoureux de Paris

March 29, 2019

Yes, this is the scarf that I received for our anniversary.... Let's Be Slightly Reckless! When her sweetheart came home with a big bonus, they really wanted to celebrate...

Would it truly be insane to go to Paris for just a long weekend? (yes... it's madness!)

She's already inspired:

They agreed on a couple of key things:

1 suitcase - a big one - that they will share, and check. If it is lost, they will BOTH have to go shopping! Not even going to TRY to get over jet lag - sleep 'til noon, dine 'til midnight... SERIOUS dining... They will dress up (not black tie, but nice) every day, do a modest amount of sight-seeing, and focus on evening meals!

She's going to keep things very ... View the Post

Start with Art: Undergrowth by Vincent van Gogh

March 27, 2019

I love van Gogh... These colors are so perfect for spring and summer:

She Hasn't A Clue... Well, that's strictly not true - she knows that she has to wear clothing to the wedding, and that it won't be ballgowns, nor jeans. Other than that, the invitation was maddeningly vague...

So... she's taking a couple of dresses - there's a chance that she's going to the rehearsal dinner (more of that vagueness that makes this such a headache), so she will wear 1 for the dinner, and 1 to the wedding. Maybe.

At least she knows exactly what she's wearing for the drive to the hotel - her favorite new green!

She's not, in fact, all that worried about what she's going to wear. She's got plenty of options, from a nice ... View the Post

Can a “Color” be a Neutral? Start with Art: Double Vision 1974 by Edwina Sandys

March 22, 2019

Someone mentioned it a few days ago - if you plan well, you could use a "color" as a neutral. Of course I had to see how that might work!

And I've got a fondness for this artist's work, so it seemed an opportune time to use this as an inspiration for a very fun-loving heroine:

"If We All Chip In... We can rent the big house up at the shore... At least a handful of us could be there almost any weekend. And since it's so big, we can leave some things up there for the summer, so we could even go at the last minute!"

A compelling argument, and she agreed immediately. The chance to spend the weekends at the shore, instead of in the city, was pretty persuasive, and to spend that time with her friends made it even ... View the Post

Start with Art: View from Bodacke, Liden by Helmer Osslund

March 20, 2019

This reminded her immediately of the site of their cabin:

So much so that she decided to make this her wardrobe inspiration for their upcoming weekends away!

This summer, she's going to plan out a simple, small, but versatile wardrobe, take it up to the cabin, and LEAVE IT THERE until they close up for cold weather! She knows that she might need to take something else with her at some point, but she's determined to avoid the "every Thursday night" packing that inevitably results in something being forgotten...

So she's planning a 4 by 4 Wardrobe, starting with "hedge green."

Next, she wants some beige. She's lucky that it looks pretty good on her - if it didn't, she would either swap the 2 ... View the Post

Start with a Bracelet – The March monthly bracelet from Fierce Lynx Designs!

March 15, 2019

This is really exciting - one of my genius technical helpers here on The Vivienne Files ALSO makes jewelry. (don't you just hate these creative types?)

And she's going to make a special bracelet, each month, for US, here at The Vivienne Files!

Here's the first one:

How gorgeous is that?

So I'm thinking about warm weather, and lakes, and beaches, and summer homes...

My color scheme is this:

And I'm planning a wardrobe that you can pull together and then leave at the beach house until at least May or June. My plan is to wear super-light colored clothing, so that it feels summery. But I'll also make certain that our heroine has a few warm garments - spring evenings aren't always warm!

First up, ... View the Post

Start with Art: Grey Fireworks by Helen Frankenthaler

March 11, 2019

She's running for office... Not a big office, nothing that will require travel beyond an hour's drive from her home in order to campaign. But she's serious about it! This is what she's using to help her focus her campaign wardrobe...

She enrolled in a 3-day workshop for women running for office... And she's going to use this trip as her dress-rehearsal for some of her campaign outfits!

She's taken a close look at other women who are running for office, and she's noticed that some of them wear a very neutral "core" outfit (often black tops and pants) with accent jackets... She's going to emulate this idea, using dark grey as her neutral, and 4 accent colors taken from her favorite painting.

Since she ... View the Post

Start with Art: From the Lake by Georgia O’Keeffe

March 9, 2019

Planning a wardrobe with mostly neutrals doesn't mean that your wardrobe will be predictable...

Let's start with this most wonderful painting:

It's pretty simple - we can start with the same neutral clothes that we used a few days ago...

Ah, but the accent pieces are quite different. One of the neat things here is that this heroine could have 5 neutrals... the brown and the grey would both be excellent secondary wardrobe neutrals, don't you think?

This wardrobe feels very different to me than the earlier version with bright accents:

I've kept the silver earrings, and then added in brown and aqua...

Same with the bracelets - her neutrals are still perfect for her wardrobe, but ... View the Post