The Vivienne Files

Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature

Home » burgundy

burgundy Archives - Page 3 of 5

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

As soon as I launched the newest Pantone Spring and Summer 2015 color scheme file (available here), 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 find four pieces in khaki, I ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with a Scarf: Hermes Maroon Shawl

Someone sent me a photograph of this delectable item - a shawl, no longer available, from Hermes - and asked if it would be possible to build a little something beautiful around it. Ooooh, yes, this is DEFINITELY possible...

First up, a color scheme, as always. Using camel as the neutral, there's a whole range of maroon, dark red, bright red, and hints of yellow here - lots of possibilities!

My imagination called this transition season dressing - either spring or fall. Maybe for business, or for pleasure. One dress, for a splashy night out, and otherwise dressy but not fussy separates for business or elegant sightseeing.

(Note that the accessories are either angular, or have a woven element in them, to harmonize with ... View the Post

Navy Capsule Wardrobe with Accessories in Rose, Amethyst and Marsala

A handful (plus one) of navy garments can give you nine different combinations. Once you toss in three different "accessory families", you have a world of options. With a tee shirt or two thrown in, wouldn't this be a blissfully easy way to pack? ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Nature: Panicum Shenendoah, aka switchgrass… a Four Pack

So what do you do if your favorite color scheme includes colors that are just plain difficult to wear together?  This beautiful grass (growing in the Lurie Garden, about a 10 minute walk from chez nous) includes some striking colors, but it isn't at all simple to find ANYTHING, clothes or accessories, that include the two colors...

But these are really pretty...

So you just have to accept that you might wear them separately most of the time, until and unless you find things that bring the colors together.  As long as you stick with your neutral core, these kinds of "color conundrums" aren't really limiting!

   ... View the Post

The French 5-Piece Wardrobe + A Common Capsule Wardrobe: Burgundy, Teal, Navy and Grey

Very popular colors - I often get requests for capsule wardrobes in these!  And this year, this wine color is quite popular and readily available - if it's a color that you love, this is a good season to pick up a piece or two.

This is an long-term sweater, a blouse that should last you a couple of seasons at least, and a cardigan that you can count on for a few years.  Most scarves hold up well and can be counted on for the long term.  But I think the stand-out item here is the great wool shopping bag - how clever is it to make a wool bag?  I can just imagine how nice this feels...

In order to give you a fuller view of just how useful these few items can be, I've found two dozen different combinations that work ... View the Post

A 4 by 4 Capsule Wardrobe in Denim, Wine, Grey and… (AWOL)

 One of the unstated goals of The Vivienne Files is for all of us to benefit from the mistakes that I make or the problems that I encounter.  That was brought painfully home to me today when, after HOURS of looking in all of my secret stashes of garments, I could NOT find anything in leaf green.  Well, I'm pretty sure Target has some things, but they didn't have good photographs, so that puts them out of the literal picture for me... I think it's safe to assume that someone out there right now is thinking about working on a color scheme for which one of the colors is very scarce in the market.  Like completely missing.  So how do you handle that - what do you do? This was the capsule wardrobe that I cobbled ... View the Post

A 4 by 4 Capsule Wardrobe in Teal, Wine, Olive and Camel

Camel and olive are pretty versatile - here's a much more subtle use of these two neutrals, compared to the vivid gold and red from last week.

But let's talk teal for a second:  If you look around for things which claim to be "teal" in color, you get a range anywhere from an almost emerald green, all the way over to an almost navy blue.  That's annoying when we're trying to describe colors, but in the case of this capsule wardrobe, this flexibility was useful for me. 

When I initially started working with a couple of tops closer to green than blue, I found that I had all kinds of clashing nastiness when putting the teal garments next to olive.  It was basically trying to blend cool green with warm green, and it was ... View the Post

A 4 by 4 Capsule Wardrobe in Burgundy, Pearl Grey, Black and Petrol Blue

I love burgundy - it has subtlety and richness, while still maintaining the complexion-flattering qualities that it shares with red, pink, peach, and all of those rosy-ish shades.  For those of us gradually migrating away from black, and toward grey in our capsule wardrobes, I could see that burgundy would be a very wise accent color to consider for those days when we're feeling a bit pale.

This is a pretty casual wardrobe - no skirts...

In my mind, this color is distinctly different from the color of denim - it has more grey to it. It's a very difficult color to find - if you're a fan of petrol, definitely also look for slate blue, smoky blue, and dusky blue.

This Barbour sweater is great, but PLEASE promise me that if ... View the Post

A Four by Four Capsule Wardrobe in Berry, Beige, Navy and Brown

I was going to save this post for during my Paris vacation (September 18 - 28!!!), but I really like it, and I think it shows two great accent colors that many of us could consider incorporating (at least in small doses) in our capsule wardrobes.  The fact that the berry red is going to be pretty flattering for many people is worth remembering...

The same starting four in brown, with a really brown skirt...

And navy separates that look familiar too!

And these guys have been around too... I think the most amazing thing about the clothing from The Row - aside from their prices - is that they're designed by the Olsen twins.  From Full House. I don't see that they have any fashion design, nor textile manufacturing, ... View the Post

A Four by Four Capsule Wardrobe in Navy, Grey, Teal and Burgundy

The Four by Four capsule wardrobe - in which you focus on four garments at a time - is a great way to move toward a complete wardrobe when you can't face a ton of shopping at one time.  The fours can easily be pulled from your Step by Step Capsule Wardrobe; this is sort of Step by Step with lots of resting in between steps! One of the great beauties of Four by Four is that sixteen garments, plus accessories, is a great quantity of clothes for travel... While these sixteen items could be purchased in any order or combination, I've got to admit that I would be VERY tempted to get all of the solid navy pieces at the same time, and maybe even from the same place.  Navy is not a color that can just be tossed together the way grey or ... View the Post