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Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature

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How to Pick Accessories for a Grey-Based Wardrobe – Start With Art: Paris Dreaming by Peter Rumney

February 15, 2017

 

You might remember that yesterday we were looking at this very pretty painting and building a wee wardrobe around it:

 

And that we left that post with this capsule wardrobe assembled using our backbone template:

There's an interesting conundrum around the idea of accessorizing this wardrobe - it's inherent in the very different two "sides" of the template: bright vs neutral. One the one hand, a few bright accessories are going to be good fun to complement the bright blouses and sweater that I've included. However, you don't ever want to go overboard in that direction, because you can end up looking a bit cartoonish, and you don't want to leave your "all-neutral" outfits without any jewelry, ... View the Post

How to Accessorize a Capsule Wardrobe: Head by Pablo Picasso

This is really growing on me! Remember, on Friday, we started with the painting, "Head" by Picasso (which you may or may not really love - that's certainly up to you!):

 

Which, through a couple of steps of planning and shopping, gave us this 13-piece capsule or travel wardrobe. This is a wardrobe that's extremely versatile, giving you appropriate things to wear for every activity from a nice evening out to a hike in the park!

Cardigan– Scaglione; long-sleeved tee – Uniqlo; sweater – Uniqlo; tee – River Island; skirt– J. Crew; pants – J. Crew; jeans – L.L.Bean;  

  capris – L.L.Bean; shorts – Patagonia; long-sleeved tee – Uniqlo; shirt – Lands’ End ;sleeveless top – L.L.Bean  

 

I also ... View the Post

How to Wear Amethyst – the February Birthstone? I Have Some Ideas…

February 6, 2017

 

It's a question that comes up surprisingly often - I'm an adult woman, and I sometimes feel like I'm too old to wear my birthstone...

Well, if you don't tell anybody that you were born in February, or that amethysts are your birthstone, they won't know the difference; they'll just think that you like amethysts, or the color purple.

And if they do know that it's your birthstone, and for some reason they think that it's odd that you wear them... ignore them. Well, ignore this particular judgment, for a judgment is what it is. And not a kind one...

I was born in June. I wear pearls a LOT. Clearly, I don't care if someone thinks I'm channeling my inner 3rd grader!

But frankly, it's nobody's business but ... View the Post

How to Expand Your Accessory Wardrobe: Winter Scene in Moonlight by Henry Farrer

January 23, 2017

 

On Friday, I expanded the original travel capsule wardrobe into a more complete "Four x Four" capsule wardrobe, but the real fun comes with adding more accessories!

When our heroine originally packed for her winter weekend on the farm, these were her accessories - lots of scarves!

Just for reference purposes, and to enjoy this painting one last time, this is her style inspiration:

For normal life, constantly wearing boots won't work, so we probably should start by getting her a comfy pair of loafers...

  And just because I'm bracelet mad these days, another star bracelet could be a fun addition. It's a good thing that I'm in a shopping moratorium this year, because these ALL are very ... View the Post

How to Choose Business Accessories, One at a Time – With a Navy Suit

January 11, 2017

 

Monday, we pulled together a wonderful business capsule wardrobe with a navy suit for the reader with a new job, but let's get her some accessories too!

 

Obviously, she had shoes on when she interviewed, but let's add a beautiful pair of black pumps, with comfortably low heels, to her wardrobe first:

 

And I always want earrings, sooner than later. I know women who never wear them and who look just fine, but I always feel more... complete? finished? when I get my earrings on...

While it's entirely possible to carry everything you need in your pockets when you're just banging around town, for work, a nice bag is essential. I didn't try to get navy leather goods for this ... View the Post

Build an Accessory Wardrobe 1 Piece at a Time: Soir d’Octobre by Maurice Denis

January 6, 2017

 

Yesterday's capsule wardrobe based on Soir d'Octobre was pretty great, but we can't just leave our imaginary heroine like this:

Let's remember our inspiration:

So let's work step by step - just as we did yesterday - and add all of the essential accessories (and a few fun ones) to this wardrobe.

First, one must have shoes! This time of year, a pair of short boots is a nice warm choice:

sweater - L.L.Bean; shirt - Lands' End; leather pants - J.Crew;   Top boots – Rockport; middle - Aerosoles; bottom – Ariat  

I know that many women would want a handbag immediately, but for me, I don't feel dressed unless I'm wearing earrings!

Here, I decided to test-drive the theory that I ... View the Post

One Navy Dress in a Capsule Wardrobe: 14 Ways to Wear it With Muted Accents

September 2, 2016

One last adventure with this dress - this time, with muted accent colors like olive, burgundy, and mustard! (I have been hungry 24/7 for a week...)

You might notice more or less immediately that I'm reusing a TON of accessories from the recent post with the grey dress. I'm not doing this because I'm lazy, (well...) but because it all fell into place, unexpectedly.

When I put together posts like this, which are variations of previous posts, I reuse the original PowerPoint file. For this, I went through each page, deleted the original grey dress, and pasted in the navy dress. Then I changed the color of the divider stars... It was only when I went to the next step - changing the accessories - that I realized that I ... View the Post

One Navy Dress in a Capsule Wardrobe: 14 Ways to Wear it With Brights

August 31, 2016

I always intended to do 3 posts with this dress, yesterday's pastels, today's bright colors, and on Friday I'm going to look at some muted shades... (tomorrow is the first of the month - time to revisit those "1 Outfit per Month" wardrobes!) So today, I changed the shoes, but kept to the same general theme of working through a range of colors.

(These seven images look really great together on my computer; I don't often notice this, but I've got this lovely rainbow running down the side of my desktop right now...)

The color spectrum isn't quite the same as yesterday, but I still worked my way around the color wheel. Doing this ensures that I don't miss any possibilities; it's something to consider when you're looking ... View the Post

One Dark Grey Dress in a Capsule Wardrobe: 14 Ways to Wear It

August 26, 2016

 

I could wear this dress a lot...

Dress – Humanoid  

At its most basic, you can approach this dress with simple metallic silver accessories, or you can combine silver and shades of grey:

Dress – Humanoid;earrings – Gianluca Anzani; bag – Ina Kent; flats – Balenciaga; earrings – Madewell; scarf – BP.; quilted flats – Munro  

I love the contrast between the deep, cool color of this dress and the equally strong, but warm shades of camel or caramel. Mixing warm and cool colors isn't off-limits, if you balance the strength or intensity of the colors.

Dress – Humanoid;  earrings – Shlomit Ofir; bracelet – Carlos Munoz;  cardigan – Dorothy Perkins; loafers – ... View the Post

Essential Accessories for a Travel Capsule Wardrobe: What I’m Packing: Italy, September 2016

August 25, 2016     As of 6 pm Chicago time on Wednesday, I have no news about the town that I was going to visit next week. It is about 50 miles from the epicenter of the earthquakes, so I suspect that it avoided much damage. Nonetheless, we are considering the possibility of just staying in Rome for a week, and avoiding the region entirely. No decisions have been made yet, though... Of course, let's keep the earthquake victims, (and all victims, everywhere) in our hearts.  

  Let's jump right in! I've known for weeks what my travel outfit is, including shoes, so let's start building around that:    

For what it's worth, I'd buy the same Munro oxfords again when these wear out; they're ... View the Post

Building a Wardrobe of Bags – Accessories for the Capsule Wardrobe

August 19, 2016  

A couple of weeks ago, Belovedest and I were wandering around Chicago when we happened upon a store called The Shudio. Yes, it's a "hybrid of a retail shop full of eco conscious goods... combined with a metalsmith jewelry studio."  And yes, this is some fun...I could have purchased a lot of things, but I'm trying very hard to avoid that kind of reckless madness (especially with THREE big vacations coming up in the next year!), but I did buy a lovely little black leather wristlet, from a company called CHC. They donate 10% of their revenue to a local organization for homeless women, and all of their materials are local. Pretty nice; I was happy.

But when I got home and dug out my bag for our upcoming trip ... View the Post

One Yellow Dress in a Capsule Wardrobe: 14 Ways to Wear It

August 17, 2016  

One of you recently bought a yellow dress... It wasn't this one, but it was an equally simple, beautiful dress...

Dress – Who's Who  

What to do with such a nice dress, in such a statement color? Work your way through every color in the rainbow, and test them in your mind (in a PowerPoint presentation, or on Pinterest?) to see how they'll work...First up, knowing that the purchaser is a woman who wears "cool" colors and accessories, I thought I'd take a look at putting some black with it. Some people might feel that this is too much bumblebee, or University of Iowa, or Pittsburgh Pirates, but I think that it's a striking option.

In the first example, I used a bit of white (or of skin, showing ... View the Post