orange Archives - Page 3 of 9

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

May 17, 2017

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 ... 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

January 18, 2017

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 ... 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

November 16, 2016

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.

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 bright green was hard to spot. And I know that ... View the Post

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

October 26, 2016

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

October 24, 2017

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

October 4, 2016

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 ... View the Post

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

September 14, 2016

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 ... View the Post

A Capsule Wardrobe in Beige, Bright Blue and Orange: Expanding Your Accessories

August 12, 2016

Oh, how I love accessories....As a reminder, this is where we left the capsule wardrobe when we finished the 4 additions to it yesterday:

I was really appreciating the summery-ness of this wardrobe, so I thought I'd add some warmer-weather accessories (before they disappear entirely from the stores...) Sandals are essential!

And sunglasses. If I convince you to change only ONE thing in your entire life, I want it to be that you buy and wear GOOD sunglasses regularly. You might think that it's just a question of squinting, and getting wrinkles, but your eye health is dependent on shielding them from bright sunlight. Please, not a cheap pair of sunglasses - get something worthy of you and your ... View the Post

A Capsule Wardrobe in Beige, Bright Blue and Orange: From Travel Wardrobe to Whatever’s Clean

August 11, 2016

Yesterday's travel capsule wardrobe looked like this:

A few people asked me if a travel wardrobe could be expanded into "Whatever's Clean 13;" of course, almost anything is theoretically possible in The Vivienne Files world.But interestingly, it's actually more difficult to fill a "Whatever's Clean 13" template than almost any other kind of wardrobe plan, because of the flexibility that each garment has to have. Realistically, this wardrobe's not going to be exactly perfect, because there might be some "issues" about the floral shirt with the orange cardigan. But you could certainly wear them together without someone throwing rocks at you, so we press on in our work. (in the best of all possible worlds, ... View the Post

Packing Light: A “Six-Pack” Travel Capsule Wardrobe in Beige, Bright Blue and Orange

August 10, 2016

Let's start today with two scarves:

Archivist Everybody wanted to know answers - why do we have to bill the Prosidion Group on the 8th of every month? Why do we have to call the head of the Alblomilon Corporation exactly 10 minutes before we send the invoice? Why does the entire invoice for the Habestrate Manufacturing Consortium have to be sorted alphabetically by street address???

Well, everybody had always archived the emails that explained these things...

But until she got there, NOBODY organized the archives!

So she worked. Carefully, methodically, attentively, for months...

In her first two weeks, she discovered that Habestrate was being underbilled $10,000 ... View the Post