Four T's Archives

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

A Pretty Brown Wardrobe? Start With Art – Flowers in a Crystal Vase by Edouard Manet

October 29, 2025

This is the third post in a series; the initial post with just brown in it can be found here, and the second post, which was a brown, black and white wardrobe, is here.

Maybe you like brown, and maybe you think of it as an infinitely feminine color. Seriously, hear me out!

It's the color of soil. Which is the source of all things green, growing and fertile. That would be us, ladies...

And I'm offering up this beautiful painting to inspire us:

Of course, this wardrobe could easily include green... I'm considering this painting to include in next year's "6 Paintings" posts, and I would absolutely include a range of greens...

First up, let's get our brown clothes and accessories ready:

I was ... View the Post

Do You Want to Shore-Up Your Neutral(s)? Try the Four T’s!

October 22, 2025

Why yes, the internet outages on Monday WERE a headache...

Ten years ago, when I was visiting London, I noticed that a lot of women had worked out a really simple way to build outfits, and therefore their wardrobe. I called it The Four T's, because of COURSE I had some mnemonic to help me remember things!

But it's simple enough: tee shirt, turtleneck, trousers and tights. Look back ten years to see the original post...

Now that I'm (a) getting dressed each day for legitimate cool weather, and (b) considering what I might pack when I go to Paris in December, I thought that I should look at this idea again.

But not in black! My choices for myself will of course be black, but in the interests of variety let's ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with a Scarf: Pigs on the Wing by wrq.e.d. Version 2

October 22, 2015

While the first colors that I saw in the scarf were greys and black, there's definitely enough beige and brown here to work with; maybe I see black and grey first because that's my personal capsule wardrobe focus?

But this time, this is the color scheme. I like giving myself the full range of the blues and browns as options, I think it works well with the scarf, and makes the blending of different shades of one color possible. While there are a few colors that need to be matched pretty closely, others can blend all over the place and work well - I think brown is one of those!

I didn't mention this, but the border of this scarf reads:

"my song was out of tune, my voice was cracked, but at least no ... View the Post