orange Archives - Page 2 of 8

Pack For a Special Occasion by Starting with Art: Vernal Yellow by Lee Krasner

Most of the time, clothing (and thus The Vivienne Files) is about covering ourselves with efficiency, good value, and a coherent personal image. But it's worth remembering just every now and then that clothing can also be the object of extravagant fantasies...

Someone's happy, excited, full of energy, and just plain bursting with joy - that's what this painting felt like to me:

So They're Just Going to Elope...

No date worked for everyone. No location was good for most people. It just got more and more difficult...

So when the offer was made "why don't we just take the train to Paris and elope?" she was ALL over it...(yes, she has another suitcase somewhere...)

They'll arrive a bit late in the day, but still have time to freshen ... View the Post

NEVER Wear Pink and Orange Together??? Humbug… Accenting Navy and Beige with Unexpected Bright Colors

Big important notice - the "Six Scarves, Six Wardrobes, over 12 Months" post for June will be here tomorrow! I hope! The Internet in my building (yes my entire building!) has been off and on, as they work on it... Don't they know that we have important blogging to do? Knuckleheads...

In case you haven't seen the earlier versions of the navy and beige summer wardrobes, you can find the one accented with dark camel and moss green here, and the first one with accents of mint and lavender here.

Today's colors just jump off of the screen:

Just for the benefit of those among us who are joining this adventure in progress, this is the neutral starting point - a half-dozen core pieces around which I will try to build a coherent travel capsule ... View the Post

What Accesories Do You Want for Warm Weather? Start with an Echo “Paris in the Spring” scarf

When we left our happy heroine yesterday, she was packing for a trip to visit friends on the Gulf Coast of Florida. She was using this scarf as her leitmotif - the inspiration around which she was building her travel capsule wardrobe:

This was what she knew that she would pack - plenty of things for the beach and boat, and enough dressy pieces that she would be fine if dinner turned out to be more formal than she expected:

Just for reference, let's remember that she'd planned this wardrobe pretty carefully!

But she knows that she wants to include more accessories - especially more shoes! So she's going to work through a handful of outfits, making certain to include each of her "bottoms" so that her shoe choices will be ... View the Post

What to Pack for the Florida Gulf Coast? Start with a Scarf: Paris in the Spring by Echo

The scarf says Paris, but your luggage is all tagged TPA - you're going to Tampa to visit friends with a home on the Florida Gulf coast!

They've mentioned the beach, and the boat... (repeatedly...) There's a bit of sightseeing, some serious lounging to be done, and you might take in a baseball game. You'll be dining out at least a few times, too!

Well, you know that it's going to be hot and sunny. You know that it's a relatively casual part of the country, and you know that you don't want to carry a whole ton of stuff with you.... What to do?

Let's start with a color scheme, based on this most lovely scarf:

You know that no matter how warm the weather is, the airport will be freezing cold, and the plane is seldom warm. So you've got ... 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

Build a Whatever’s Clean 13 Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Dragonfly by Miro

Such an interesting email....

Say you live outside the United States. You're retired. The weather's always reasonably warm and nice. You only shop every year or two, when you visit in the US...

And THIS is your inspiration:

I'm really liking these colors, and this WHOLE scenario!

In the interests of establishing a solid basis upon which we can build, I'm going to assume that our heroine either owns or already plans to purchase these pieces:

At this point, we've got a solid starting point, and a lot of fun things to find!

I'm ALWAYS going to recommend that you buy the sweater or tee shirt or top that goes with your cardigan. Even if you aren't the sort to wear a twinset, having pieces in the exact same color means that anything ... View the Post

12 Months, 12 Outfits in a Brown-Based Capsule Wardrobe: An Evaluation

If you want to go back and catch up on how we've arrived at this point, the earlier posts are here: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November.

The second of our six wardrobes looked like this when we left it in November:

As I did yesterday, my first project is to try to fit these pieces into the Four by Four template. It seems to me that this wardrobe still could use a casual skirt. She already has 2 skirts, they they're both pretty dressy - maybe khaki is an option.

When I look at the existing wardrobe in terms of weather and dressiness, I find the same thing that I did yesterday - a shortage of simple tee shirts. That bottom right quadrant is pretty sparse:

And finally, ... View the Post

The French 5-Piece Wardrobe Start with Art: Poppies and Butterflies by Vincent Van Gogh

As the days get shorter, and we spend a LOT more time in the dark (in the Northern Hemisphere, of course!), a painting like this is a cheering thing to study:

For those who worry that a "warm" wardrobe - one that's ideal for those with Autumn or Spring coloring - might be too dark in the cool weather, I offer some ideas!

I love these pieces - you could literally get dressed in the dark with no worries about not matching! A couple of pair of warm brown/tan shoes, some lovely gold jewelry, and you'd be well set for the day.

L.L.Bean has a handful of different sweaters in this "sable" color...

Green is the most maddening color to shop for right now! (unless it's yellow...) There's lots of emerald and darker shades, but this ... View the Post

Tote Bag Travel Capsule Wardrobe in Orange, Black, and Sand

These colors could be "Halloween-y," in a capsule wardrobe but I'm going to keep that from happening!

The presence here of the sandy tan, and some white, are critical!

She Wrote Her Thesis...

about Lázsló Moholy-Nagy! So when she learned that the Art Institute of Chicago had a HUGE special exhibit of his work, she cleared a couple of days from her calendar...

His work influenced all sorts of things in her life - not the least, her affection for orange!

She knows that she's going to have to leave the museum and dine, and go to sleep, but she's headed back the next morning for more.... more....

More joy? More appreciation? More admiration? More happiness.... love, Janice ... View the Post

Tote Bag Travel in Orange, Rose and Sand

Not what you normally think of as autumn colors, but why not:

She Had Hoped that Nobody Noticed....

That she was working from home on the day of the holiday party...

"You're going to be here later, aren't you?" "No, I didn't plan to..." "You can have one of the Executive Committee hotel rooms...." "Well, ***sigh*** I'm not going to wear a dress..."

Later, the Chairman told her that she looked like "a spring flower in the midst of all of these black dresses..."

She's not sure how she feels about that, frankly. love, Janice ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Vase with Honesty by Vincent van Gogh

I'm going to take a rather different approach to working with art, for this week. One of the biggest concerns that you raise to me is that it's impossible to completely re-do a wardrobe from the very beginning. So I'm going to look at introducing accent colors and art inspirations into an existing wardrobe, and see how that works...

First, let's start with our beautiful painting:

These were the colors that I saw within the painting. For the most part, they're nice neutrals, and thus should be easy to combine.

Here's where I want to change things, for now. Imagine that the above painting has become something of a fascination for someone; they've decided that, moving forward, they want it to be their inspiration - their unifying ... View the Post

Capsule Wardrobe Color Palette – A Dash of Cinnamon, with 6 Neutral Colors

I found some lovely things in that russet color that was so elusive... And it occurred to me, again, that garments that aren't in the same fabrics don't have to be the precise same color! This tee shirt and cardigan would look gorgeous together in a capsule wardrobe:

This is a great combination:

I wasn't at ALL sure how this would work, but keeping silver metal in the jewelry made all the difference...

These colors worked wonderfully together; I particularly like this scarf. It's more of a blend of close colors than any exact matching.

Here's a case of 2 colors that are opposites on the color wheel, and which are therefore MADE for each other:

This color combination feels perfect for autumn... if it ever gets ... View the Post