Black Archives

Like to Change Your Colors With the Seasons? Start With Art – Blue Level by Lee Krasner

May 23, 2025

You often tell me that you don't much want to wear brown in the summer time, but conversely you're not really comfortable wearing bright colors in the winter. (it feels too '80s, for many of us!)

So what if your favorite painting offered you options?

You can assemble your color palette (I could have certainly included a touch of orange in here, couldn't I?), but just plain and simply ignore one or more of your colors when you plan for a season!

These are the obvious colors that come from this painting - I can't decide if the three vertical stripes are a shade of brown, or maybe plum...

This heroine is packing for an event - I believe she told me it was a first communion, followed by a church picnic. Great ... View the Post

Love Black & White, but Crave Nature? Start With Art – Green Forest by Natalia Goncharova

May 19, 2025

Maybe you're like today's heroine - you love your black and white, but in the warm weather you want to wear the colors of plants, and water, and the sky!

Our heroine has a wide range of accent colors available. Always remember that you don't have to match all of your accent colors to each other. I like to have them look nice together so that the images here look good, but in real life, you can be much more wide-ranging in your choices!

Our heroine is leaving from work, so she's wearing things that will be useful when she gets to her warm destination:

I'm going to pack this heroine's suitcase one piece at a time. The first thing I always start with is a top that can be switched out for whatever one is ... View the Post

Like a Base of Black and White? Start With Art – Variation on a Lighthouse Theme IV by Ida O’Keeffe

May 14, 2025

Yes, IDA O'Keeffe. Georgia's sister. Imagine how she felt, painting her lovely paintings... That had to be hard!

I quite like this painting. The colors are great, and I find the geometric qualities in it to be really pleasing. In the absence of her sister, maybe Ida would have been famous.

The color palette jumps off the painting at us:

This heroine is quite fond of a simple linen shirt, and with good reason. A linen or cotton shirt is one of the garments that you can literally wear every month of the year. It can be worn over a tee shirt and under a sweater in bitter cold, open over a tee shirt or tank top in scorching heat, or on its own (maybe with the sleeves rolled?) on all of the middling days.

Our ... View the Post

Want 2 Very Different Accent Colors? Start With a Scarf: Petal Pop Silk Scarf by Artifact.

May 12, 2025

This was the other Artifact. scarf that was requested as the inspiration for a wardrobe, and I can understand why!

The possibilities here are many - there's camel in the upper left quadrant, beige in the lower left, and even a touch of denim blue in the middle of the bottom right flower! But I'm sticking with the same black and ivory that we used on Friday, to show the range of possibilities within just a couple of neutrals.

The accent color I've chosen couldn't really be more different - a soft pink and bold orangish gold. It's easy to feel like your accent colors have to go well together, but that's not the case.

I've kept quite a few of the pieces from Friday for this wardrobe. Maybe this is the same ... View the Post

A Different Take On Scarf Colors: Start With a Scarf – Fleur Royale scarf by Artifact.

May 9, 2025

The instant Artifact. came out with new scarves, I received emails about them. This scarf is particularly lovely and an interesting mix of colors. When I first looked at this, my eyes were drawn to warm colors: orange, marigold, and olive.

And the heroine who wrote to me? She wants to work with black and ivory, and pink and olive accents!

Hmm...

So I built us this color palette reference page:

My habit with Artifact. scarves has been to build three outfits, and then add four more garments. It's one of about a billion different ways to assemble a capsule wardrobe; there's no rule about how this can best be done!

These outfits are for Spring weather, or summer days that aren't blisteringly hot. A cardigan ... View the Post

Black, White and Brights! The Mondrian Bracelets by Fierce Lynx Designs

April 28, 2025

Classic, colorful, and so versatile! These are timeless for sure:

The colors here are obvious, but it's always worth the effort to picture your plan as clearly as possible:

Our heroine already has her good core of black and white things, upon which she will build with her accent colors!

These colors are so much fun to look for in stores! And our heroine couldn't resist a black & white striped shirt; if you have a bracelet with a striped bead, a striped shirt seems essential...

Imagine traveling with this for a few days! Maybe you'd want to look for a pair of black & white spectator loafers, too?

Let's take a moment to imagine a few of the possible ways our heroine could get ... View the Post

May 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #1 – The Swan No. 24 by Hilma Af Klint

April 21, 2025

Well this feels weird, doesn't it? We just finished these paintings a few days ago, and now we're back with them.

Realistically (we can do realism once in a while, can't we?), this might be more the way a normal person would pull together a capsule wardrobe after cleaning out closets, or changing their life dramatically. It would be interesting to have just four garments for a month, then eight, then twelve garments in the third month, but most of us couldn't function very long that way!

So let's visit this heroine with her most enigmatic, yet alluring, painting inspiration:

When we just saw this heroine with her April wardrobe additions, she had a 20-piece wardrobe that looks as if it could get you through ... View the Post

April 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #2 – The Swan No. 24 by Hilma Af Klint

April 2, 2025

I'm really liking this painting, and this wardrobe, more every month. The four colors in the background are perfect accents for the colors of the two swans - I wish all paintings were this easy to analyze!

At the end of March, our heroine's 16-piece wardrobe was pretty well organized, and would make a good travel capsule wardrobe for a destination with moderate temperatures - nothing too hot, nor too cold!

Our heroine already has three blush garments, including a quarter-zip fleece top. But she doesn't have a simple sweater, and so she grabs this one! Grey jeans and a grey tee shirt are in her color palette, but a kind of new feeling for her wardrobe. And if you want a tee shirt in a specific color - even a ... View the Post

The Least I Can Pack – Maybe? – For Ireland

March 17, 2025

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I was to have been in Dublin this week, but family emergencies have kept us in Chicago. I figured that I could still share with you what I'd planned to pack, since I took so much time pondering it! So here's the post, as it was originally going to be published:

I'm taking as small a wardrobe as I think I can tolerate; there are a couple of very good laundries near our hotel - one north of us, one south! No matter where we're heading out for the day, we can drop off shirts and anything else that's beyond the pale of wearing again. I'm happy to pay someone to do my laundry a couple of times a year.

Here's what I'm flying in - not showing a short black quilted jacket...

Please note that these ... View the Post

The Third of Six Paintings-Twelve Months, March 2025

March 5, 2025

Big news - my dear friend Scottie is having a sale on her scarves! Get thee to her website right now to see the possibilities!

A lovely, if deeply enigmatic, painting:

That wee geometric thingy on the breast of the white swan... Hmm...

At the end of February, this heroine had a pretty and very useful wardrobe:

This heroine decided to really emphasize spring clothes this month! Maybe she wears a size that's hard to find, or maybe she's been burned in the past by having things sell out that she really liked! And she decided to break out with a pure white top - she's not afraid of wearing white with ivory...

Her new additions make a big difference this month! Adding a pair of pants that aren't dark ... View the Post

Adding Accessories – Start With Art – Cow’s Skull: Red, White and Blue by Georgia O’Keeffe

February 26, 2025

Of course, our heroine from Monday is going to need some accessories for her work wardrobe - shoes, at a bare minimum! And it's certain that she's going to be carrying a pretty big bag, since she has to carry her laptop, her mouse & mousepad, her power cords, and anything else she needs at her desk each day.

Here's the art which inspires her:

Here's the wardrobe with which we left our friend:

As much as our heroine would have loved to fill this part of her wardrobe with small sharp things, she (for the most part!) has stuck to normal, acceptable choices. If anybody asks about the skull earrings and necklace, she plans to launch into a lengthy Stoic philosophy speech about Memento Mori...

Her ... View the Post

Need a “Back in the Office” Wardrobe? Start With Art – Cow’s Skull by Georgia O’Keeffe

February 24, 2025

It's the most common question I've received since the first of the year - you've got to be back in the office FIVE DAYS A WEEK. And you don't have a clue what to wear, this time...

A specific question was from someone going back into a relatively dressy office, except for the "every two weeks Casual Friday." Our heroine doesn't want a big wardrobe for cool weather, since she only expects another 10 to 12 weeks during which she will need such things, so we're targeting a 4x4 Wardrobe.

She also has all kinds of plans to quit her current job, in favor of a place where she can continue to work from home. Much up in the air for this heroine; let's make her wardrobe simple and foolproof!

This was the color palette ... View the Post