Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature
June 20, 2017
Of course!
Flash back to one of my favorite posts - based upon a montage of images of a lunar eclipse, and see how just the right shades of orange can look great with black! Do notice the way the accessories echo her affection for the moon - moonstone jewelry, a single round button on a sweater, the round face of her watch (accented with a round gold dot!)...
love, Janice ... View the Post
June 16, 2017
Do you remember this? I do, and I think of it as one of my finest hours! (well, MANY hours...)
If you'd like to flash back to the lovely trip that our heroine was taking with this travel capsule wardrobe, you can find her here.
And a couple of days later our heroine decided to start building a larger wardrobe around the same color scheme; this was what she found and how it worked out...
Through the end of the summer, I'm going to "flash back" twice a week (I'm targeting Tuesdays and Thursdays...) I hope that this isn't an inconvenience for any of you; I have a couple of trips coming up (of COURSE I do...) and I find that I need a bit of time to get things sorted out chez nous.
love, Janice ... View the Post
June 15, 2017 Her Favorite Artist Everybody probably has one that they like the most, but this is the one about whom she wrote EVERY English language essay she had to write, all through high school and college.
She has framed posters in her home. She's read the biographies. She even listens to music that was supposed to be the artist's favorite.
And now there's an exhibition.... IN MADRID.
She has no vacation time to take. Okay, maybe 2 days...
But she has some airline miles to spend...
And enough money for a few hotel nights...
And enough money for a couple of AMAZING dinners...
Yes, she's going alone. Nobody else is going to want to spend 2 solid days in 1 museum...
Well okay, she might ... View the Post
June 13, 2017
Most of the time, clothing (and thus The Vivienne Files) is about covering ourselves with efficiency, good value, and a coherent personal image. But it's worth remembering just every now and then that clothing can also be the object of extravagant fantasies...
Someone's happy, excited, full of energy, and just plain bursting with joy - that's what this painting felt like to me:
So They're Just Going to Elope...
No date worked for everyone. No location was good for most people. It just got more and more difficult...
So when the offer was made "why don't we just take the train to Paris and elope?" she was ALL over it...(yes, she has another suitcase somewhere...)
They'll arrive a bit late ... View the Post
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
June 2, 2017
I hope that this was worth the extra day's wait!
First off, all of the scarves are sold out at Hermes. If you're really madly eager to have one of them, let me know and I'll see if I can help you to find it in the secondary market.
In this month's wardrobe building, everybody's shopping for a dress (not necessarily something really "dressy") and the necessary accessories...
First up, I'm mad tempted by this simple black dress! I can see myself wandering around downtown in this... sigh...
And kindly notice the linear quality of the sandals, echoed by the striped tote! My days are made when such discoveries fall into place...
Halfway through the year, this is our heroine's wardrobe:
And just to ... View the Post
May 26, 2017
Doesn't this make you want to just sit somewhere and watch the world go by?
Someone driving up with friends for a spa weekend is using this color scheme to inspire her packing... (well, it inspires her entire wardrobe, not just one weekend!)
Since they're driving, she can be super-casual and relaxed, but she still has her favorite leaf-motif jewelry - the painting strongly suggests that she's a nature lover.
Once they're at the spa, they'll be living in their robes, but she's going to need an outfit to get home in, and maybe something other than a robe in which to dine. Just because they put you in a robe doesn't mean that you're not allowed to get dressed!
It's a tiny ... View the Post
May 24, 2017
If you're in Chicago, you of course must go to the Art Institute of Chicago, our very deservedly famous art museum. But when you're there, make sure not to miss the fabric exhibit. It's small, it's in the basement, it changes every few months, and it NEVER disappoints...
Seen there last weekend, included in a really stunning exhibit of batik fabrics:
This fabric is maybe 9 or 10 feet long, and 4 feet wide. It's really kind of breathtaking...
Seeing these neutral colors working so beautifully together, our mythical heroine was able to solve her packing dilemma...
I've got it all arranged...
We'll just go from city to city by train; I've already purchased the train passes....
Well okay, she ... View the Post
May 22, 2017
Well okay, I've also read that we get moonstones, AND alexandrite, but I'm going to concentrate on pearls. They're my all-time favorites... (I've actually never owned a diamond engagement ring, because I'd really always rather have pearls...)
And I'm going to get this out of the way right up front - these pieces are not all genuine pearls, and none of these pieces is expensive. There are smarter bloggers than me who can tell you all about real pearls, and glorious pieces of jewelry that include them (yes, Passage des Perles, I'm looking at you!), so I thought I'd concentrate on more modestly priced treats... Joy should not be confined to those with abundant disposable income...
For lack of any better idea, ... View the Post
May 19, 2017
Ireland? I used to live there! If you're going there, you're in for a treat... but be warned, much of the year it's a somewhat colder treat than you might be expecting...Let's use a beautiful, simple painting to focus our color choices, and just to treat ourselves, eh?
This is NOT going to be a "Whatever's Clean" wardrobe - it would certainly be possible to do it with this color scheme, but I'm going to recklessly include both pink and red pieces here that will not play nicely together. You don't have to have every last little thing matching, so long as you've got the basic neutrals in place...
You might feel really foolish leaving a fairly warm place and getting onto an airplane while wearing or ... View the Post
May 18, 2017
When we left our happy heroine yesterday, she was packing for a trip to visit friends on the Gulf Coast of Florida. She was using this scarf as her leitmotif - the inspiration around which she was building her travel capsule wardrobe:
This was what she knew that she would pack - plenty of things for the beach and boat, and enough dressy pieces that she would be fine if dinner turned out to be more formal than she expected:
Just for reference, let's remember that she'd planned this wardrobe pretty carefully!
But she knows that she wants to include more accessories - especially more shoes! So she's going to work through a handful of outfits, making certain to include each of her "bottoms" so that her shoe ... View the Post
May 17, 2017
The scarf says Paris, but your luggage is all tagged TPA - you're going to Tampa to visit friends with a home on the Florida Gulf coast!
They've mentioned the beach, and the boat... (repeatedly...) There's a bit of sightseeing, some serious lounging to be done, and you might take in a baseball game. You'll be dining out at least a few times, too!
Well, you know that it's going to be hot and sunny. You know that it's a relatively casual part of the country, and you know that you don't want to carry a whole ton of stuff with you.... What to do?
Let's start with a color scheme, based on this most lovely scarf:
You know that no matter how warm the weather is, the airport will be freezing cold, and the plane is ... View the Post
