The Vivienne Files

Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature

The Vivienne Files - Page 190 of 288 - Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature

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

Color and Proportion – Step 2: Adding Shoes, and the Occasional Solid Scarf

April 3, 2015

For this 2nd step in my pondering about proportion, I want to introduce some shoes into the equation, as well as a solid-color scarf. I didn't find that I felt the scarf was "necessary" as often as I had expected - sometimes a pair of shoes made enough difference in the proportion of the outfit that the scarf, while fun, might be superfluous.

For these first two outfits, shoes that matched the cardigan lent enough "gravity" to the outfit that I didn't really reach for a scarf. Out fit 3 is more problematic - in screaming hot weather, white sandals might work, but white shoes made this look really "uniform", in the medical profession sense. Maybe the beige scarf and loafers would be better?

These outfits felt a lot ... View the Post

Color and Proportion – How Color Affects the Balance of an Outfit

April 2, 2015

Recently, someone wrote to me with an excellent question: she had narrowed down her wardrobe colors to black, white and beige, but wasn't sure how to combine these colors. Specifically, she was concerned about what percentage of each color could be in an outfit and still be balanced.

A question for the ages, really. There are limitless possibilities for combining simple colors. So I decided to put together the most simple outfits in those three colors, and see how the proportions felt.

For starters, I picked a plain tee shirt, jeans, and a classic cardigan in the three colors my friend mentioned. From these 9 garments, there are 27 possible 3-piece outfits, as well as an additional 9 2-piece outfits. Imagine the ... View the Post

Start with Art: Version 2 Steamboat leaving Boulogne by Edouard Manet

April 1, 2015 I really love the combination of blue and grey! (I often consider including blue as an accent color in my wardrobe...) So I decided to look again at this painting, with an eye to warm weather. I brightened up the blue a little bit - Manet gives you a whole range of blue possibilities - and I equalized the proportions of the four colors:

 

  I haven't built a Four by Four wardrobe for a while, so I thought this would be an interesting project. First up, the core dark neutral charcoal, in linen:  

One of the reasons I wanted to do a summer leisure wardrobe - I found this gorgeous blue at L.L.Bean. A perfect secondary color!

The Expansion Four is usually four tops of some sort, since tops ... View the Post

Start with Art: Steamboat leaving Boulogne by Edouard Manet

March 30, 2015   To whomever requested this painting as the basis for a wardrobe - a big thank you!  

 

  From time to time, I hear from women who need only the smallest of work wardrobes, because they work as temps - employees who go into an office for a very brief period of time. A wardrobe for this kind of work needs to be very conservative and very neutral; you don't really want to make any kind of a "mark" on the organization except for the excellence of your work!   I temped at a few times in the past - sometimes only for a day, and sometimes for as long as 2 or 3 weeks. This is the kind of work that allows you to have an extremely small work wardrobe, and to thus dedicate your income to ... View the Post

New York: What I Bought, What we Did

March 28, 2015  

Although I was ill for a shockingly large portion of our vacation, I did manage to get some shopping done too! One day, we walked a long way south through The Village and then over into Soho, where I was mystically compelled into the Eileen Fisher store... Two short-sleeved dresses were the happy result - dresses because they will accommodate my shifting body composition as I work out more, and sleeveless because I've lifted so many weights that my arms DESERVE some time out in public!

Belovedest had a store in mind he wanted to visit - the very charming little Miansai shop, which is the motherlode of leather bracelets. I've never been driven to have a leather bracelet, but when B and I decided to each get one ... View the Post

The road to New York was paved with good intentions…

  Yes, I took my gym clothes with me to New York. I was not in the gym once... But, in my defense, I spent four days of our vacation sacked out in our hotel room, sicker than a dog. Our theory is that the very first meal we ate after arriving is the culprit, but if you've done any research into food poisoning, you know that it could have been anything for days before...

I am one of the very few people to go to New York on vacation and lose weight!

However, in the few days that we were able to be out and about, I did some excellent sight-seeing, and some power shopping! (remember POWER? Purchase Only When Everything's Right). I'll tell you more about what I bought, and where, tomorrow.

But I will close today with a beautiful ... View the Post