grey Archives - Page 16 of 39

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

One Red Dress in a Capsule Wardrobe: Fourteen Ways to Wear It

August 22, 2016 I love doing these... and this dress just calls my name. How can I NOT own this in black? This dress also comes in yellow (remember last week's post about a yellow dress?), black, and raspberry, which is a gorgeous rich hot pink... sigh...

It probably doesn't amaze you to learn that when I do similar blog posts, I reuse the original template, and just make the appropriate changes. So after I went into this template and changed the dividers in the middle from red to yellow, I removed the yellow dress from every page, and just plunked the red dress in...And didn't have to change ONE THING, for these two options! How many different colors could work here? Certainly the black dress would be perfect ... 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

Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Arlequin by Pablo Picasso, Version 2

August 16, 2016 I have to admit, when I first saw this painting, I thought of colors of denim:

Can you see it, too?

Oh, So Wrong...

Cardigan – L.L.Bean; tote – Nine West; earrings – Made Sudiari; boots – Munro; scarf – Stella McCartney; watch – Fossil; jeans – L.L.Bean; tee – L.L.Bean; suitcase – Zero Halliburton

"She never wears anything but jeans..."

cardigan – Jardin des Orangers; scarf – Horo; earrings – Nyoman Rena; ring – Nyoman Rena; bag – Foley + Corinna; grey tee – Aeropostale; jeans – L.L.Bean; tie-dye sweater –Raquel Allegra; white cardigan – Vince; sunglasses – Dior; patchwork scarf – Fatface; bracelet – ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Arlequin et Femme au Collier by Picasso

August 15, 2016 Ever since I saw this in the Centre Pompidou, I knew that it was going to be on The Vivienne Files. This is really just a combinations of neutrals - faded denim for the blue, and then black, white, and grey.

Note the very round details of "la femme." Some angularity, of course - it's Picasso - but the circles are key!

Always Nobody notices for months, if ever...

When she was a very small child, someone once complimented her on her necklace. That remark stuck with her forever, and wearing a necklace became her signature.

Small, large, fancy or simple, she always wore one. Even when swimming, she would wear a simple, inexpensive little ... View the Post

Packing Light – a Six-Pack Travel Capsule Wardrobe in Grey, Peach and Light Blue

August 3, 2016 "Dress Yourself" She's been hearing this her entire life - she remember it as a small child. She interpreted it as wearing clothes that look like her! So her grey hair, blue eyes, and blushed cheeks are her color scheme:

Cashmere cardigan – L.L.Bean; sweatpants – L.L.Bean; earrings – Nyoman Rena; scarf – Zadig & Voltaire; watch – Skagen; sweater – Uniqlo; socks – Uniqlo; bag – Le Parmentier; loafers – Tod’s; suitcase – Delsey

(yes, she flies in sweatpants; she irons them, and conceals the drawstring, and nobody seems to be the wiser...)She always gets sent on the "48 hours in some remote country" kinds of trips, because she seems to always be able to get things working better than they had ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Avenue in the Park by Gustav Klimt

July 26, 2016

Don't you want to walk down this avenue? I'm hoping that there's a lovely person with some iced coffee down there in that intriguing yellow building...

While green is the dominant color in this painting, there's no way to build even the smallest of capsule wardrobes around that shade of green, unless you make the garments yourself. So I've chosen the lovely grey of the tree trunks and branches as our neutral.

Life List She's taking just a short break, but with a very specific purpose in mind...

She's packing just enough for a few days of walking outdoors, followed by casual dinners and long nights of restful sleep:

When her friends hear her mention her life list, they always assume that ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with a Scarf: Ted Baker’s Dreams Scope

May 17, 2016 She's so smitten with the scarf that she decided to plan her entire trip around the colors she found in it!

Every Year They go back to the little town in which their wedding took place. For the most part, it's a very casual long weekend, spent walking around the lake, browsing in used bookstores, or maybe taking in an estate sale...

But every year, on Saturday evening of their weekend together, they go back to the place where they were married. And they repeat their vows...

This year, she's going to remind him that beautiful brides come at every age...

love, Janice ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Composition by Natalia S. Gontcharova

May 26, 2016 Okay, I'm more than a little bit smitten with Ms. Gontcharova's work...

For someone who wanted to base their entire wardrobe around this work, there's also a bit of green in here:

When I Am An Old Woman... (blah, blah, blah) Yes, we know, you'll wear purple. But she's been wearing purple FOREVER...

She wears every shade of it. She buys her entire wardrobe with an eye to how well it will work with "her" color...

And she mixes multiple shades of purple without hesitation, and without apology.

Someone once told her that she had eyes like Elizabeth Taylor's; but she knows that it was only the reflection from ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe 1 Piece at a Time: Black, Blue and Grey, for Leisure

May 18, 2016 This is in response to a specific request to incorporate more leisure wear into a capsule wardrobe (without breaking the bank), based on the same simple black column I've used before, but including a great cardigan:

Tee – Lands’ End; pants – L.L.Bean; cardigan – Hallhuber

The request also wanted to incorporate some grey into their leisure wardrobe, so this was the color scheme that I developed:

Tee – Lands’ End; pants – L.L.Bean; cardigan – Hallhuber

I need to mention also that this person isn't in a really hot climate, so a lot of super-lightweight clothing wasn't going to be necessary...First, we need to break up that black column and introduce a ... View the Post

How to Combine 2 Capsule Wardrobes

April 23, 2016

Many of your mentioned that you felt that the capsule wardrobe based on the Sophie Taeuber-Arp painting (see it here) would work beautifully combined with the wardrobe inspired by the composite photograph of a lunar eclipse (see that one here). You're a bright crowd (but I knew that!); this is lovely!

First, the business capsule wardrobe with the soft mustard accent:

And then the more relaxed black and grey capsule wardrobe, spared with shades of terra cotta:

All of the clothes, in 1 place! There's really only 1 small tweak I would make to this - I would make sure that there weren't any "droopy" sleeves or armholes on the tops. Here, I would probably get a grey top that fit a bit ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Composition a Cercles a Bras et Rectangles by Sophie Taeuber-Arp

April 19, 2016 Another painting that I saw last week in Paris. That vacation seems so long ago now...

At first this seemed like a pretty straightforward color scheme, but there are a LOT of possibilities here:

She Does Modeling...

Square scarf – Isabel Marant; shoulder bag – Allsaints; cardigan – Simply Be; yellow diamond hoops – JCPenney; watch – Isabel Marant; tee shirt – J. Crew; pants – J. Crew; suitcase – Longchamp; loafers – Patricia Green Financial modeling, that is. The hardest work in the office, in many opinions.

Yellow silk shirt – Theory; leather bracelet - Bottega Veneta; silver square earrings – Gurhan; blazer – Nina Ricci; ivory top – ... View the Post