The Vivienne Files - Page 170 of 269 - Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature

A Clothing Diary Week 9

April 21, 2015 Some clarification is needed about how often I wear gym clothes, and where. Yes, I probably have gym clothes on EVERY day of the week - 6 days a week maybe at a minimum. BUT!!! I don't wear them outside of my building unless I'm running outdoors. The gym where I workout is in my basement; residents of my building see me in all of my athletic glory (ahem...), and I might stop at the grocery store in the basement of my building after I've worked out (yes, my building has a grocery store. And a dry-cleaner...) but that's as far as it goes. Wearing gym clothes frequently is NOT an excuse to be wandering the streets in tons of too tight, too thin, or too brief clothing. Frankly, on any given day on the ... View the Post

A Four by Four Whatever’s Clean Capsule Wardrobe in Black, Beige, Marsala and Natural

April 18, 2015 As soon as I launched the newest Pantone Spring and Summer 2015 color scheme file, someone asked me to do some work with the color of the year - Marsala. She had honed in on the black and khaki, and after a bit of discussion we agreed that the best 2nd accent color would be an unbleached linen/natural color. This is the palette we finally chose for a capsule wardrobe.

I started with black, of course! Sleeveless and short-sleeved, cropped pants and "normal" pants, and all from 3.1 Phillip Lim, just for ease of matchy-matchedness. You can, of course, find your four pieces from a different, less pricey, company, or mix them from a few different places.

In fact, in order to ... View the Post

It’s Time to Quit Lying to Myself about What I Wear…

I know that I've mentioned in the past that I'm a little bit of a gym rat, but I don't think that I've ever mentioned that there are days (maybe 3 times a week) when I get out of bed and put my gym clothes on immediately. Many of those days, I don't change OUT of my gym clothes until at least mid-afternoon...

Now, back when I was a swingin' advertising chick, I used to get dressed up pretty nicely five days a week, and if i was travelling for business, that would be seven days a week. That life, however, ended almost TEN YEARS AGO...

So let's look at my current life, honestly:

There's nothing wrong with sitting at my desk in nice, well-fitting gym clothes, working on The Vivienne Files, while I'm either waiting to start a ... View the Post

How to Choose a Green Hermes Scarf

April 16, 2015 The email asked me to help choose from among a handful of Hermes scarves, being purchased for a landmark birthday, and to serve as a focal point for personal style and image. But the most fun part? In a very monochromatic (black, dark denim, white, eggshell, pale silver, linen white) wardrobe, she is looking to this illustration for accent colors:

This absolutely charming and intelligent book has no text, so it's appropriate for any child (and a lot of adults!) anywhere in the world... What a brilliant inspiration! The scarves in her narrowed-down shopping were these:

I was thinking about looking at shoes, to try to isolate the defining DNA of each scarf.

Dear, ... View the Post

A Travel Capsule Wardrobe for a Long Weekend in Paris, with a Blue Jacket…

April 15, 2015

It was pointed out to me that this lovely nubuck suede jacket (thanks, House of Fraser!) would also look lovely with navy... so I'm taking us on an imaginary long weekend in Paris this time...

love, Janice

Looking Back:

2014: Chic Sightings: Dots! 2013: Project 333: My First Week in "My" Uniform 2012: Packing: Brown and Turquoise ... View the Post

A Pantone Spring 2015 Monster File, and taking tomorrow off…

I was toying around with the new Pantone colors for spring, thinking about upcoming posts for The Vivienne Files. The idea of "new" colors is always entertaining to me - I'd LOVE it if our eyes could suddenly be enhanced to see something that we've never seen before!

But some people do find that the Pantone colors are very available through the upcoming season, and like to have an idea about which among them might work best with their existing wardrobe. So by the time I'd finished monkeyed around with all of these colors, I realized that I'd pretty much completely updated the old Color Planner document...

This baby includes all of the combinations of 2 neutrals (from the list of 14 neutrals that I've come up with, so far), and then ... View the Post

My French 5-Piece Capsule Wardrobe for Spring and Summer 2015

April 11, 2015 This spring is a festival of Eileen Fisher! There's an Eileen Fisher Company Store in Schaumburg, in the west Chicago suburbs, which is a wonderful place to shop if you have both a plan and some discipline! Couple that with being able to get Eileen Fisher clothes at every department store in Chicago, and the canny shopper can often scare up some good deals! So, for this upcoming warm weather period, I've got a new red twinset-ish sort of arrangement, as well as a pewter cardigan, a GORGEOUS silver silk jacket, and my engineering-striped dress. (the black dress I bought in New York qualifies as a neutral, if anything ever did...)

I'm just going to work with five simple black ... View the Post

What Cost per Wear Really Tells Us…

April 10, 2015

If you do a lot of reading about wardrobe planning, you'll run into the concept of cost per wear. It's a pretty simple idea - you just remember what you paid for something, and then you figure out how many times you've worn something, and you divide.

If you get something expensive and don't wear it very often (like a $200 sweater that you wear 4 times - a CPW of $50), your cost per wear is pretty poor. Conversely, if you get a great tee shirt for $30, and wear it every week for two years your CPW in 30/104, or teeny little pennies... So it's only logical that if you've got something that has a great, low cost per wear, you can say that you got your money's worth, much more than the expensive ... View the Post

A Travel Capsule Wardrobe for a Long Weekend in Chicago, with a Blue Jacket

April 9, 2015

I clearly am doing something wrong in the blogging world, because after blogging for 4 years, I just NOW have received my first "swag" i.e. a gift from a retailer! Other bloggers seem to be swamped with gifts, but that's not my experience... sigh... But the lovely people at House of Fraser sent me this gorgeous item, pictured below! It's nubuck suede, which is the best stuff available! Well-made, too... When I lived in Ireland, I remember that when you absolutely wanted to buy clothes, your best option was to hop onto the LUAS tram, and take it south to the Dundrum Shopping Center, where the only House of Fraser in the area was located. Their store was like an oasis of nice things in an absolute SEA of ... View the Post

Color and Proportion – Step 4: Some Printed Blouses and Tee Shirts

April 8, 2015

Here's where a really amazing variety of possibilities begins. I'm starting with the simplest of stripes, but even with stripes there can be all sorts of variations. Imagine, for example, a mostly beige tee shirt with the thinnest white stripe, or conversely, a mostly white top with a very subtle beige stripe. The balance of color WITHIN the top will also influence how the balance of the entire outfit works. You could get really obsessive about this if you let yourself...

One thing I hear that many of you find challenging is the "dumpy" or "square" proportions of the jeans and cardigans. Frankly, I chose these items partly with that in mind - I really wanted the colors of the garments to be what we noticed - especially ... View the Post

Color and Proportion – Step 3: Adding Print Scarves and 2-Tone Shoes to Solid Garments

April 7, 2015

Here's where the fun starts, for me! As an avowed fan of scarves and what they can accomplish to balance, accent, and just generally jazz up, I was happy when we get to the patterned scarf part of our experiment..

I've owned these black and white loafers a COUPLE of times in the past (literally, I believe they've been making these since the '80's) and I always wear them to death. And I'm embarrassed to confess that the Trotters loafers are, in fact, beige and dark brown. On my monitor, the trim looks black! I truly didn't know the "real" colors until I was almost finished.... sigh...

And you can always find deck shoes in a ton of color combinations...

I personally now really like the first two outfits, but ... View the Post

A Clothing Diary Week 8

April 6, 2015 Because of the holidays and some family visit, I got to spend a lot of time with B and his peeps this week. It was handy to be able to just grab clothes and feel confident about putting together attractive outfits... This skirt is fast becoming a workhorse in my wardrobe. It hangs beautifully, and has pockets!!!

I had the immense good luck to find red Tod's loafers at a site called The Real Real. (silly name, but a great site) The price was a single-digit FRACTION of retail...

I will take a better photograph of the scarf when there's sufficient good lighting - it's really excellent, with strong blue and red accents on a charcoal grey and white ground. I'm finding a lot ... View the Post