I Love IT But Will I Wear IT Archives

I Love It, But Will I Wear It? Beach Roadtrip Silk Scarf by Kate Spade New York

August 19, 2020

One of you has had a moment of serious whappage, and asked for my opinion...

This is the scarf in question - it's SO pretty that I might be tempted to buy it and figure out how to wear it later; THAT'S not the cleverest way to shop!

Oh my HEART - this scarf screams summer in so many different ways....

Our heroine has been invited to go along with her spouse to a fishing cabin that's walking distance to a very charming little town. While she won't be doing any fishing, she WILL be sitting outdoors reading, walking into town to browse about, and probably doing a bit of walking on the trail around the lake. Sounds lovely, doesn't it?

My approach for her is to assemble 3 little clusters, based on the ... View the Post

I Love It, But Will I Wear It? Paisley Skirt

July 24, 2020

Her email to me was urgent, but self-effacing. She REALLY wants this skirt - I mean really really really REALLY wants it... but she doesn't want to be a bother...

Such nice people you all are!

But who could resist this challenge? It's mid-calf, it's pull on, it's got some great colors:

Our heroine was thinking of this as the pivot piece in a travel capsule wardrobe - would that be possible? I say - resoundingly - YES!

Let's start with a couple of tank tops and a 2nd layer for freezing indoor temps, as well as cool outdoor evenings:

A couple of uncomplicated pink tee shirts, and some sparkle earrings! And yes, you absolutely can wear Keds with skirts; it's relaxed and brings the dressiness level of ... View the Post

I Love It, But Will I Wear It? Patchwork Shorts

June 24, 2020

Another cry for help from my email - a question I LOVE to get... If I order these, how will I wear them?

Okay, this is maddening, bordering on insane. The color, described on the website, for these shorts is "Deep Admiral Blue." Unless I'm drinking something more amusing than coffee at this hour, the primary color here would be forest green? With beige, coral and white?

Whatever! The easiest way to find at least 1 or 2 garments to go with a contemplated new purchase is to look for items that are the same color, from the same company. So we start like this:

The tan or beige color in these shorts is sufficiently prominent that wearing beige with them would look great. Generally, even if a garment has 47 ... View the Post

I Love IT, But Will I Wear It? A Brown Cashmere Sweater

June 18, 2020

Brown is the most annoying color to try to find in clothing. Well, okay, maybe it's olive green, or a true purple, but for those who would love to build a core wardrobe in brown, it's maddening!

So when I was asked about these sweaters, I jumped on the idea right away:

Brown goes beautifully with just about every neutral...

I love brown and black together - I know that it violates that rule about wearing warm and cool colors together, but I've never believed that to be true! Nature is full of examples of warm and cool colors together...

Grey might be the most difficult of the six neutrals to wear with brown, but it's still not a big struggle. A little bit of silver jewelry and you're ... View the Post

I Love It, But Will I Wear It? Blue Cotton Cardigan

May 1, 2020

It catches her eye every time she's on the website. She has wondered how she might wear it, if she were to treat herself...

Finally, she decides to actually try to PLAN an outfit or 2, from current garments and some possible other lovely things she's seen. She does want to buy something for spring, and starting with this cardigan might make sense. If you keep daydreaming about a piece of clothing after you've seen an image of it, you might want to think seriously about how much you're attracted to it, right?

She is fond of a wide range of neutral colors, so there are plenty of possibilities...

First off, there's no reason that you can't just wear a cardigan in a different color over anything neutral and ... View the Post

I Love IT, but Will I Wear IT? Ivory Cardigan

I was despairing of what I was going to post, when I got an email asking about a cardigan of a different color! I'm so grateful for you all...

My heroine didn't tell me what her favorite neutral is, so yet again I'm going to experiment with this sweater worn with a handful of neutral colors. There's pretty much no color that this wouldn't go with; I might hesitate about wearing it with pure white, but then again...

I love the way ivory looks with chambray - it makes it feel sort of dressed up. Definitely not the way denim colors usually look!

I like ivory and grey together - they're both softly muted... The scarf actually looks a lot better tied than it does laying out flat, but I couldn't find a good ... View the Post

I Love IT, but Will I Wear IT? Camel Cardigan

Oooh, this is SUCH a good garment for this kind of thinking. Camel is so lovely - rich and warm, and pretty difficult to find in a lot of garments. So you might find yourself really stuck for ideas about how to wear something cozy and nice like this:

I'm not going to offer up a single color palette for this cardigan, because I frankly don't know what the favorite colors are of the heroine who received this over the holidays. Rather, I'm going to share SIX possible "neutral partners" for camel...

When in doubt, you always know that denim goes with... everything? Is there a color that you wouldn't wear with denim and chambray? I can't think of one...

I like the possibility of wearing ivory corduroy pants (on a DRY winter day) ... View the Post

Start with a Scarf: Lion and Peacock Scarf by Aspinal of London, in navy and camel

She Decided to Branch Out...

She's worn navy with pastels for decades... And she's now ready for an update!

She's always felt drawn to camel. The richness, the warmth, and elegance. And she's been told repeatedly that it was a color that she could happily wear. But she starts small... something below the waist!

Success! But the real camel item that has always caught her eye is a lovely cardigan...

Now she's feeling positively emboldened! She looks closely and her scarf and sees a beautiful shade of blue; would a matching sweater and flats be wrong?

But she's not going to rely entirely new purchases - when she look in her closet, she realizes that her aqua sweater would be perfect with her new ... View the Post