cardigans Archives

The Weekly Timeless Wardrobe, Week 11: Neutral 2nd Layer

Another Monday, and time to add something more interesting and exciting to your Weekly Timeless Wardrobe! Our heroine is adding a 2nd layer to her wardrobe... it could be printed or patterned, so long as it works beautifully with her core neutral garments.

For example, if you're working with a grey palette, with ivory as your light accent color, the above cardigan would be quite useful for you...

Your choice of 2nd layer can be as bold or as subtle as you like...

A cardigan like this is richly subtle:

If you already have a dark neutral 2nd layer, looking at your lighter neutral is worth considering!

Black and ivory always looks good...

This sweater would be great with so many shades of ... View the Post

The Weekly Timeless Wardrobe, Week 7: A Second Layer

While the first 6 pieces of this wardrobe are versatile, our heroine could certainly use something to keep her a bit warmer, and give her that "finished" look that you get with a jacket or cardigan...

I'm a fan of keeping this first cardigan (or jacket) as simple as possible; simple = versatile when we're talking about clothes...

In all of the earlier weeks, we've been looking at pants, so I thought that I would show that a good cardigan is the perfect thing to wear with a dress. If you want to look more casual, or wear a summery dress when the weather cools down, a sweater is the answer!

Why yes, that handbag is absurdly expensive... But I like the way it looks here; I'm sure we can all find something a bit less ... View the Post

12 Accessory Families! The Pantone “New York” Colors for Autumn 2019

I have no idea why they have multiple color groupings for autumn... Pantone does things their own way, no doubt!

I love these posts, but they take ages to do; just because Pantone thinks that these colors are going to be popular does NOT mean that they're easy to find. But in all fairness, these colors aren't just intended for clothing and accessories - they could be for automobiles, decor, restaurants - whatever...

Still, these are lots of fun, and would be a great way to bring some personality to a Weekly Timeless Wardrobe, wouldn't it?

This first color is closest to what I would indulge in:

This darker red might be lovely with brown, wouldn't it?

If you like beige or grey, this peach would be ... View the Post

Spring Updates? Or Maybe Mother’s Day?

I'm not good with dates - I forget birthdays (except my own, and Belovedest's), if we hadn't got married on the 1st day of Spring I would struggle with our anniversary, and let's not even get started on the holidays that changes dates every year!

But Mother's Day in the US is coming up soon... If you're still lucky enough to buy gifts for this occasion, it's time to give it some thought!

And yes, your mother would want you to have something pretty too...

If your wardrobe could use a bit of freshening up, a new accent color for warm weather is a fun option to consider; for this post, I just found cardigans that I liked, and then built around them. A pretty cardigan over a neutral outfit ALWAYS makes things feel new and fresh, and ... View the Post

10 Ways to Wear a Yellow Dress

From The Vivienne Files mailbox:

Yes, she asked our heroine to wear a yellow dress for the wedding.

It doesn't really matter what dress, just that it be yellow.

Now WHAT do you do with a yellow dress, after the wedding?

For a heroine in a position of having to purchased a dress in a real "non-neutral" color, I have a few suggestions...

If our heroine buys a dress that is a sleek "bottom layer" over which garments can be layered, virtually any neutral can be worn with this dress:

I don't feel like black and yellow together automatically scream "bumblebee!" to to the world... It might scream University of Iowa fan, or Steelers/Pirates/Penguins fan, eh?

With white, it just feels wonderfully summery, doesn't ... View the Post

Chic Sighting: Printed Dress and Black Cardigan

Yes, they were only going out to breakfast as a family, but she considers that a special occasion! So she put on her favorite black, white and red printed dress, with her dressy black cardigan, black tights, and short boots. (it just cracks me up to see people wearing boots here in Florida on days when I personally would be wearing sandals...)

Other people might not be dressed quite as nicely, but that's okay too...

this first dress is on sale for half off... if I weren't on a shopping fast, it would be on the way to Chicago!

This outfit idea works for hot weather too!

Lunching at a nice restaurant?

This idea works well for work:

There are a lot of places that you could wear this outfit!

You can even ... View the Post

My 4th Most Popular Post – How to Wear a Petrol (or Slate) Blue Cardigan

Not too long after I started The Vivienne Files, I received a lot of emails from people who owned specific garments that they struggled to integrate into their wardrobe. Thus, I wrote a lengthy series of posts about "How to Wear....". This one was the most popular, which is interesting, albeit inexplicable to me!

And yes, the original cardigan wasn't really either slate nor petrol; finding beautiful, subtle colors is difficult, and becoming harder all the time! If you really want to own a garment in a richly well-dyed color, you will have to search, and probably pay more than the price of a take-out lunch...

The advice in this post about how to look at your "orphan" garment and find it a home is still true, I'm happy to note!

It ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe in 12 Months, 12 Outfits – January 2018

It's that time again! I looked and LOOKED at the Hermes scarves for this year - I wanted to find some unique color combinations... I kept changing my mind until literally the last possible minute!

This year's focal points for gradual wardrobe building are these lovelies:

A word to the wise - these scarves are selling FAST this year - I had to go to the sites for 3 different countries to find these colors, literally just 3 days after I started working on this post! Your best option for finding a fast-selling scarf is to call an Hermes store and ask THEM to find it and send it to you. Their staff is usually delightfully helpful and nice, and it will save you the legwork of trying to mail-order a scarf from a country for which you don't ... View the Post

Can a More Casual Work Wardrobe have Personality? Start with a Moth…

You might think it's just a flying caterpillar, but the colors are so lovely....

Your understanding is that the first interview is going to be most of the day in their offices, and then a break before they take you out to dinner; they want to make sure that you know which fork is which!

It's a kitchen gear company - why would you be interested in their job if you didn't know your salad fork from your dinner fork? Of course you're hired! For the first few days, you're going to have options to dress nicely if there's going to be a meeting, but otherwise the offices seem quite casual...

This is the the tiny wardrobe that you have before your first paycheck arrives - you can get through a week of work without too much ... View the Post

How to Wear Diamonds – the April Birthstone; Some New Ideas!

Everyone already knows how to wear diamonds - there's a big business consortium that's been telling us exactly what to buy, and how to wear it, for decades...

So I'm looking at something a little bit different - unpolished diamonds, or diamonds as an accent with other stones, or diamonds in unusual colors. So if your birthday's in April (or the birthday of a special someone...) and you don't want to go full-on solid diamonds, I have some suggestions:

(yes, you've seen some of these dresses before! A nice dress can stand up to a lot of scrutiny, and works well with a variety of accessories...)

And this black pleated dress? I'm just saying - it's a REALLY good thing that I'm not shopping for a dress (or anything else!) this year - this ... View the Post

How Can I Accessorize a Column of Black? Chic Sightings to the Rescue!

In the last few days, I noticed a number of women wearing simple black "columns," - a sweater and pants, or a tee shirt with pants, and at least in one instance, I think she was wearing a black dress with black tights.

But what caught my eye was the way that each woman had put her own very personal spin on the basic black core of their outfit. My eye was caught immediately when I saw this great floral tote:

This is really clever - the grey and white in the cardigan keep the outfit from looking anything at all like Halloween.

And I spotted this tote WAY across the room - I've always kind of wanted one of these... and I could love this cardigan to pieces...

Even when you're doing a lot of waiting someplace not terribly fun, you might ... View the Post

How to Assemble a Warm-Weather Capsule Wardrobe – Bavarian Cream Tossed Floral Cardigan

I have no idea why it's called "Bavarian Cream." I had no idea that the cream there was in some way special...

Today is the last version of the "start with a patterned cardigan" idea, with more complete explanations of what I'm doing with these cardigans. (brace yourself - I get pretty carried away explaining my methodology here!) This cardigan was chosen because one of you who is contemplating the purchase on this one felt that the colors might prove to be too autumn-like...

For what it's worth, upon close study, I think that these colors are pretty safely seasonless; one might be reluctant to wear a pair of cream wool crepe trousers in February (nasty salt splashes = ruined garment!), but for the most part, none of these colors are ... View the Post