Denim/Chambray Archives - Page 12 of 19

Capsule Wardrobe Project 333 Autumn 2014 – I’m IN!

September 6, 2014

No, it's nowhere NEAR cool enough to wear autumn clothes in Chicago - I think right now the temperature could be around 90, the humidity nears 3 digits (I swear it goes over 100% - it's like swimming in a bathtub...) and we're going to get thunderstorms any time now. But I am travelling very soon to cooler climes, and it's only reasonable to be prepared when the weather whiplashes us into cold, as it will...My clothing requirements become more and more simple; after I spend eight hours a day looking at thousands of garments and accessories for The Vivienne Files, I only want to wear black or grey. Maybe some pearl jewelry. Maybe a scarf! I now understand why some fashion designers wear ... View the Post

Start With Art: The Magpie by Claude Monet

September 4, 2014 In our mythical leisure, Belovedest and I watch art courses from The Great Courses. Our current course is The World's Greatest Paintings, in which we studied at some length the beauties of this:

Talk about mixing warm and cool colors to great effect! I was irresistibly drawn to use this as a Start With Art subject. Note one really interesting innovation that I'm trying: rather than attempt to nail down two specific browns and greys, or one color to represent the damp and frozen branches, slats on the gate, and branches in the fence, I'm working with a spectrum of brown to darkest grey. Doing this frees you up to build a wardrobe around any color that might be found in the ... View the Post

A Four by Four Capsule Wardrobe in Mint Green, Grey, Denim and Brown

August 21, 2014

I've decided to change up the order of the colors in the titles, so that when we scan through a large number of them, the accent colors will be better emphasized. They are, theoretically, where the fun it! So one of you (you know who you are, you scamp!) fell in love with a deeply INAPPROPRIATE scarf:

I would do hideously inappropriate things for this scarf in grey and pink, so I understand...

So this lovely scamp had pretty much committed to a color scheme with two neutrals of denim blue (not necessarily denim FABRIC, but that blue), and brown. Her first accent color was planned to be grey, and she had not settled on a 2nd accent. I proposed this color scheme to ... View the Post

A Four by Four Capsule Wardrobe in Denim, Grey, Pink and Rose

August 15, 2014

The same grey clothes are going to get a bit more mileage - this time, combined with denim, and softest shades of pink and a kind of lavender-ish rose. When I built this color scheme, my thinking was that when the accent colors are so closet together and have so much the similar feeling and mood, that it sort of gives you the freedom to use any color within that entire family.First up, the finished capsule wardrobe:

This is the color scheme, with that absolutely annoying grey that will NOT show up well once it's transferred into a PDF. Sheesh....

When using denim as one of your neutrals, it's can be helpful if some of the denim has some texture or pattern, so that ... View the Post

Start With a Scarf: Dark Pool by Elizabeth Blackadder

May 7, 2014

A couple of years ago, the National Gallery of Scotland held an exhibit of the works of Elizabeth Blackadder. I've been hard-pressed to find an actual picture of the painting from which this was drawn, but this is a great scarf, with some interesting possibilities.Today I've chosen to focus on the accent colors on one end of the scarf - the pastel apricot, rose and light blue, in order to see how they will work with the murky, sophisticated greyish green that dominates the scarf:

This sort of olive/grey shade is tough to find in clothing, but well worth seeking out if it appeals to you and is flattering - it has a depth that looks sophisticated, and lends itself well to a wide variety of garments. And ... View the Post

18=216, in a really big, perfect wardrobe slot machine…

April 28, 2014

I said on Saturday that the idea of a wardrobe slot machine could be expanded, and one of my dearest friends was eager to see how this would play out. For some of us, the idea of getting dressed for work every day is just plain annoying - nobody is going to pay much attention to what we're wearing, as long as we're appropriately dressed.

So I promised her that I would show an example that would give her more than a week's worth of shirts or blouses (i.e. six), and then show how it could be expanded. Six top layers x six shirts or blouses x six pants or skirts =216 combinations.

She could literally shop once a year and then forget about work clothing for a long time... In the hottest ... View the Post

The Perfect Clothing/Slot Machine /Backpack

April 26, 2014

I've been in the live-in caretaker role for quite a while now - since we got back from Paris, I've only been home a handful of days... In order to uncomplicate my life, I just put some clothes into a backpack and hopped on the train, hoping for the best. Turns out that my instincts were great - I was wearing three garments, I packed six, and there was literally NO combination that wasn't wearable. I felt like my clothes were a perfectly weighed slot machine upon which I couldn't lose...

These were the clothes that I had with me: (okay, these aren't exactly the same garments. My cardigans are from Lands' End, and are years old. My denim shirt is from J. Jill and is no longer available. Everything else is Eileen ... View the Post

I Want to Dress Like a Chalet…

March 11, 2014 These kinds of rooms are really popular, and many of you wanted to know if this whole feeling or sensibility can be conveyed in a wardrobe.

What can we take from this photo and those of similar rooms that will help us make informed choices about what to add to our neutral wardrobe? Words that I immediately identified included wood, bone, beige, ivory, ethnic and Native America prints, warm textures, tone-on-tone layering. Starting with this base wardrobe:

Three garments that aren't a really wild stretch, but that start expressing your taste:

Lots of easy ways to wear these...

Add in some ... View the Post

The Vivienne Files FAQ: Are Accessories Necessary?

March 4, 2014 Do you have to buy and wear accessories? Absolutely not - except most of us will have to wear shoes... But I very strongly feel that just a few well-chosen accessories can make a world of difference in how the simplest of garments come together into ensembles. If you're not comfortable wearing scarves, find a way to just throw one around your neck one day and then do your utmost to ignore it for as long as possible. Make sure your first scarf isn't anything floaty or filmy that's going to blow up into your face at the first opportunity. Maybe something quite small, tied up and out of the way so that you won't even really see it... Jewelry is also pretty useful - earrings especially ... View the Post

The Vivienne Files FAQ: What if I Don’t Wear Black?

March 3, 2014 I knew this would be the next question - what if I don't wear black? You have all of the rest of the spectrum from which to choose, but realistically, grey, navy, brown or tan/khaki are the most obvious other options from which to choose. Let's try the same exercise as before, but with warm colors. Say you at least know that you prefer mostly warm hues - and these are your favorite recent purchases:

There's no outfit to be worn from these four - it just simply isn't possible for most of us to put together an ensemble here. But if you started with a basic core of neutral clothes in warmer tones (except for jeans, which are sort of the ultimate neutral):

Then you ... View the Post

The Vivienne Files FAQ: Do I HAVE to buy basic garments?

March 1, 2014 Every day, I get lots of emails with lots of questions. I like that, and I'm happy that you take the time to write to me. ([email protected]) As hard as I try, I don't really have time to answer everybody individually, but your questions make a lot of difference when I choose my content every day. The single question I'm asked the most: "Is it absolutely necessary that I own neutral, simple, basic, plain, boring garments?" Let me say this flat out - if you can find a naturalist community with consistently moderate temperatures and well-groomed walkways, you can go without purchasing ANY CLOTHING AT ALL for the rest of your life. I know this is reducto ad absurdum, but sometimes we need ... View the Post

Start with Art: From Mount Darling by Peter Simpson

February 28, 2014 So this is your dream:

And maybe this is your current reality:

All the more reason you should consider shopping your dream, and at least wrapping your immediate self (i.e. your body) in the calm, soft, organic and tranquil colors of which you dream. Start small - a simple silk tunic that can be worn with any pair of pants you own... This tunic, all on it's own, could raise your spirits for a few days! Maybe some blue shoes, or a bag. And your next pair of jeans could certainly be green rather than something more predictable and conformist...

So many shades of blue from which to choose - but you don't really have to choose! ... View the Post