denim Archives

December 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #3: Pines by the Sea by Bertha Lum

December 3, 2025

Before we dive into the fund, I have a Public Service Announcement!

Get your wallet out. Take everything out of it, and scan it all, front and back. Now email those files to yourself.

If you happen to lose your wallet, or if it's stolen (as just happened to me), you will be endlessly grateful to yourself for having this information handy... Having to replace your passport 10 days before an international trip is - shall we say - STRESSFUL!

Okay, let's dive into this most lovely painting. Imagine if I get to move to Ireland, and I have to replace my entire wardrobe for some horrible reason. These colors would be so great...

Our heroine was pretty methodical this month! She knew that she wanted some ... View the Post

November 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #4: Pines by the Sea by Bertha Lum

November 6, 2025 Breaking the Rules - Sometimes You Just Want To! Our heroine has this lovely painting to inspire her wardrobe choices:

Our heroine needs a dressy outfit for a VERY special occasion. She looked and looked at her "usual" colors - especially teal. But she came back, and back again, to these two (very expensive!) pieces in sequined taupish brown. And she finally caved...

Now, her wardrobe doesn't look a lot different, except she now has these two sequined garments that sort of stick out...

As always, are we smitten with her jewelry and scarves?

The shoes and bag that she bought for her event don't really blend in with everything else. This is okay; imagine the flats and bag worn with denim, or with ... View the Post

Can’t Live Without Denim? Start With Art – Prunus by Kees van Dongen

October 31, 2025

One last tour through the potential of "The Four T's" in dark chocolate brown, starting today with this lovely painting:

There's no way I will be able to match this blue exactly, so I'm just going to work with a soft, faded denim/chambray...

There's a little bit of pink in this painting; would this be a good piece of art to include in next year's "Six Paintings"?

First off, let's not forget our core of brown clothes and accessories:

The simplest four garments in denim blue - I was pretty thrilled to find both the sweater and tee shirt!

And finally three tops in ivory!

And of course, I'm going to find some accessories!

Now, our heroine's wardrobe looks VERY different than it ... View the Post

October 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #5: Pines by the Sea by Bertha Lum

October 7, 2025

Three REALLY easy neutrals (brown, denim and white) paired with teal, which is an accent that lots of us seem to love!

Could you keep the three neutrals and replace the teal with... pink? or peach? I'm sure there are other accents that would be perfect with the three neutrals. Hmm...

If's finally getting cool where THIS heroine lives, so she was happy to grab a couple of turtlenecks and a warm dress!

This heroine is keeping up - somewhat - with her Weekly Timeless Wardrobe. As with so many other among our friends and their wardrobes, this one is going to fall short when we get to the winter holidays. But there are no rules...

This wardrobe is relatively well balanced; when it comes to putting ... View the Post

September 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #6: Pines by the Sea by Bertha Lum

September 8, 2025

The last of the six paintings for September, and it's always lovely:

Our heroine was very practical this month, adding items from her Weekly Timeless Wardrobe list, and then treating herself to beautiful earrings and the matching pendant! A scarf at the very darkest end of her spectrum finishes her shopping...

Her shopping sticks with her plan!

Her wardrobe is pretty evenly balanced, with 21 garments in the blue/white/light green family:

And 19 garments that are teal or shades of camel and brown. I suspect that another month of shopping for autumn and winter clothing will bring this more closely into balance, but you never know...

This heroine has the best scarves and ... View the Post

The First of Six Paintings – Twelve Months February 2025

February 3, 2025

I've already reached the point at which I really want to look at these painting one at a time! It's possible to focus better on just one painting at a time - at least for my limited capacity...

This month, the top of the heap is this beauty!

When I look at this painting on different screens, the dark neutral color varies between camel and a dark olive green. I'm sticking with camel, although it's lovely to have a second option...

Our heroine comes into February with this compact but pretty excellent capsule wardrobe:

This month, our heroine decided to lean into the chambray blue in her wardrobe, as well as grab a good pair of loafers and a handbag:

With these additions, the overall feeling ... View the Post

Feeling Bright and Casually Festive? Start With a Scarf – The Trina Turk scarf by Echo

December 16, 2024

These are NOT traditional holiday colors, but they're certainly bright and cheery enough to be appealing this time of year:

Of course, this scarf has more colors than our heroine has chosen for her palette—she's pretty happy that in warmer weather, she can choose beige, olive green, or off-white.

Just a Bunch of Friends It's a tradition for all her friends who can't get away to be with family this time of year; they get together at someone's home for a few days, attend a couple of parties, go out to dinner, and go to a movie one evening...

It's not dressy, but it IS festive. She dresses warmly to drive there, although the weather has been pretty moderate. She can't leave until late—she can't leave until ... View the Post

Craving Soft Colors, in a Crowd of Vivid Team Colors? Start With Art – Moon by Ono Chikkyo

October 16, 2024

It's come to my attention that nobody can leave comments! I don't know what's wrong, but I've having the smart people look into it... So sorry for the technical difficulties....

love,

Janice

It's tempting to think that all heroines are strong personalities, with a touch of bright flamboyance around all that they do. But in fact, many of us are quiet, low-key, and don't get noticed right away! And that's splendid...

Today's heroine thinks of herself as a moon, in that she reflects the brighter (but sometimes TOO bright) light of others.

Her painting inspiration for her weekend homecoming trip:

She has soft ashy-colored hair, and light but clear and bright blue eyes; her colors for the weekend will ... View the Post

Denim and Ivory: Three 13-Piece Travel Capsule Wardrobes

September 20, 2024

I can't believe that September is 2/3 over! You'd think I wasn't awake every day...

Our heroine has looked at her wardrobe with cores of denim and black, and then with cores of denim and brown. Today, we're going to see how EVERYBODY'S favorite of denim and ivory looks...

This is our heroine's starting point - 27 garments in three "neutral" clusters, and then three "accent" clusters.

First, let's take a last look at her hard-working core of denim garments, with yet ANOTHER group of accessories. Wearing things every week is the fastest way to get your "cost per wear" for garments down; you can buy exceptionally nice clothes and still get good value if you wear things consistently!

The ivory ... View the Post

Denim and Brown: Three 13-Piece Travel Capsule Wardrobes

September 18, 2024

When we last visited our heroine with the modular wardrobe, she was packing in denim and black, with autumn-hued accent colors.

Just as a reminder, this is her autumn wardrobe in its entirety:

She's refreshed her accessories, as she moves into a few weeks in which she's going to pack her denim and brown cores. Each week, she will change to a new accent color, so while she's wearing the same clothes most of the time, she doesn't get bored...

Here are her denim pieces:

And her brown things - how yummy is brown?

She's found a new burgundy scarf, with a lot of deep green in it - it will look great with her evergreen accent pieces too. Sometimes that happens - you get lucky!

So for the ... View the Post

Three Travel Capsule Wardrobes in Denim and Black

September 16, 2024

You certainly remember that on Friday, I grouped a bunch of wardrobe clusters into a wardrobe that offered lots of possibilities for travel or for visibility in a small closet:

But we need accessories! While this wardrobe is fine without them, it's not much of a reflection of how women actually get dressed, eh?

Starting with denim! If you find denim shoes that you like, and you can picture wearing them, grab them. Denim shoes aren't growing on trees, and a lot of them are tricked out with lots of sparkles, embroidery and other unnecessary stuff that will just fall off if they get wet or you brush against something...

Today, I'm going to focus on wardrobe that use just two of the neutrals available to ... View the Post

Multiple Capsule Wardrobes Starting with Denim, Built Cluster by Cluster

September 13, 2024

In honor of Friday the 13th (not really!), I'm sharing a post that's been lurking in my brain for a while.

It's pretty backwards, in that I'm going to show you the complete wardrobe first, and then show you all of the options in this that I see...

clear as mud, as I can sometimes be, when I'm trying to use words, where pictures work better!

Here's the full 27-piece wardrobe for cool weather:

The questions that brought me to this included heroines who very much want a mostly denim wardrobe, heroines who can only keep a tiny portion of their wardrobe in their "main" closet at any time, and heroines who travel four nights a week EVERY WEEK, and who pack around a core of denim clothing...

So I ... View the Post