travel wardrobe Archives - Page 10 of 13

Packing for Paris! What I’m Doing Differently, This Time…

December 10, 2015

I'm leaving today! Early this evening, in fact, which is a little bit irritating, because I don't get to Paris until 10 a.m. Sometimes this flight leaves much earlier, getting one to Paris in time for an early breakfast. Some day, I will understand why the airlines change things so often...But no matter! I'm going, and I'm going to have a wonderful time. If you want to keep up with my running around, please follow me on Instagram. (it's that little camera-ish thingy in the right margin area) I plan to post something there at least hourly when I'm awake, so everybody will know that I'm okay...

Differently? My primary plan originally was that I was going to be pretty informal - jeans and nice athletic ... View the Post

A Template for Your Travel Outfit

November 19, 2015

For a long time, I've been saying that I think the outfit in which you travel is the most important clothing you have to choose for a trip, and I'm sticking with that belief. Recently, Belovedest had dinner with a co-worker who spent over 48 HOURS in an airport in Egypt, trying to get home. (when they were finally allowed to board a plane, they had to leave all luggage and carry-on bags behind, and could only take with them what they could carry visibly in their hands, i.e. phone, passport, and wallet...)

Okay, that's a very extreme case, but it's not at all unheard of to be delayed, or have to be re-routed to an unexpected city (where you hang around either on the plane or in the airport for an ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: The Golden Stairs by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones

November 9, 2015

This painting caught my eye, and held it for a LONG time, on my recent trip to London.

After studying this for a long time, I realized that the majority of the color tones found here fall into two distinct families, which work beautifully together.

I feel an immoderate affection for taupe, but it is a THANKLESS color to try to find in our world. I don't understand why; it's subtle, rich and elegant without being difficult to wear.

Happily, I was able to find just enough things for our heroine... Standing Out, Quietly There are always LOTS of women at these family events. But they do look to her for a certain quality of elegance or sophistication; she IS the one who lives in the city, with the cool job ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Music Party, East Cowes Castle by Joseph Mallord William Turner

October 26, 2015 It takes a minute or two for the images to become clear...

But it's worth the wait. These are great colors for this time of year!

Skipping the Reunion, Again Every year, their school has a reunion. And every year, they get together in their favorite pub, and decide that they don't want to go! (everybody in the world did NOT love their school years...) It's become a tradition...

The someone pulls out the National Rails Timetable, and they haggle around a bit about where they go for a weekend away. This year, Edinburgh!

A few weeks ago, they knew nothing. Now, they're ready for one of the great castles in the world, beautiful scenery, excellent architecture, buckets of ... View the Post

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

October 21, 2015 Such a great scarf... Do we all remember the Pink Floyd song?

I am going to work with this scarf twice - I have a warm color scheme in mind for this, too. But for now, I'm concentrating on shades of grey, and that glorious blue.

The Thinnest Veneer of Conformity You have to visit the client. You developed the billing fee plan, so you've got to explain it to them. (those sales persons are such sissies...) You've been briefed at exhausting length about how to dress. Like you haven't been dressing yourself for decades. But you're usually... somewhat... nonconformist, so I guess they might have reason to be concerned. No worries, you are going to board the plane is ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art – Festival in Montmartre – Version 2

September 28, 2015 So when we last visited our heroine, former family caregiver become corporate Public Relations executive, she was thriving in her new position. And it didn't go unnoticed by her employer's competition!

Headhunters began to emerge from the shrubbery...

And one day, she was called into the Director's office.

10 minutes later, she's holding a VERY large retention bonus in her hand, in exchange for her signature on a two-year contract.

VERY LARGE retention bonus.

She went back to her office. She closed the door, burst out laughing. With a bit of silly, breathless squeaking mixed in.

And she cried, just for a second.

Then she called her husband. And then the travel agent...

She ... View the Post

Whatever’s Clean 13 FOR MEN – warm colors, warm weather

September 19, 2015

I understand that some of you are less than fascinated by the assembling of a travel wardrobe for a man; I can understand that. However, I felt that I really needed to respond to the requests that I've received, for years, for such a project. And let's not collectively forget that these wardrobes work EXACTLY like the women's version. With very little adaptation, any of these wardrobes could change gender and be really attractive. Yes, you'd want to toss in a piece of two of jewelry, and swap out ties for scarves. Maybe the 3rd pair of trousers would be better suited to be a skirt, and you don't have to pack quite so many shirts that button down the front, and have a collar. (although you could keep them just ... View the Post

Whatever’s Clean 13 FOR MEN – cool colors, warm weather

I particularly love working with menswear - their garments are so beautifully designed and well made that it's gratifying to put things together into outfits...For a warm weather trip, I'm still including a blazer, cardigan and sweatshirt. Maybe it's from living in Chicago, but I find that there's no destination that doesn't, from time to time, require something warm. At a minimum, the blazer or cardigan comes in handy when you want to be more "dressed" for some activities. And if you never actually need your sweatshirt, that's good!

This starts out like any other menswear wardrobe, but the blazer is cotton, and unstructured (i.e. unlined, but still meticulously finished inside.) The trousers are linen, and the tie is a lighter-weight ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with a Scarf: Cvetaeva by wrq.e.d.

September 16, 2015

Another beautiful scarf...This one, entitled Cvetaeva, is from the amazingly talented and creative team at wrq.e.d. The images include collages, ball point pen illustrations, florals, and a poem, by Marina Cvetaeva. It's written around the border: the dear art of oblivion the soul has mastered all the way. some overwhelmingly big feeling melted within my soul today. This is the wondrous object:

The first time I looked at the scarf, these were the colors that I saw. I was always envisioning this with burnished brown accessories, to reflect the beauty of the border of the scarf:

She's a Poet Yes, she earns her daily bread as an office manager for a real estate company. But if you ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Egypt Drawing 9 by Susan Osgood

September 3, 2015 So beautiful... the depths of the black throughout the blue, the radiance of the red shining in the distance, and are those footsteps moving up off the top of the image?

A color scheme of clarity, but with dimensions of color:

Can You Play the Game? The rules are few, simple, but rigorously enforced:

Either participant can initiate the game. You must be ready to leave within the hour! You must be able to carry (not roll) your bag...

The destination is not known by either participant until after arriving at the airport and talking to an airline representative to find the least-expensive flight (within certain parameters). No sand, no snow. Trips last ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe Starting with a Scarf: Silvie Shadow by Ted Baker

August 28, 2015 If you are a fan of floral prints, get yourself to the Ted Baker site... I stopped into his store in Chicago on Saturday, and it was an oasis of beautiful floral fabrics. His items sell out really quickly, so if you see something that really grabs you, it's worth acting quickly. The prints are intricate, beautifully rendered, in lovely fabrics, and very feminine without being at all prissy or twee. Gorgeous...

There are at least a couple more colors that I could have pulled from here - there are touches of apricot, and of course a soft white would be ideal - but this is what I'm working with:

You don't dress like a scientist... She has like flowers for as long as anybody can ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Understanding by Parscha Mirghawameddin

August 25, 2015 What a striking painting - a juxtaposition of colors not often found together. And they work so well... thus, the title is Understanding - these colors have found a way to live together with joy and beauty.

This is a great, uncommon color scheme - and it could easily be flipped to use a lot of the beige from the upper left areas as a neutral too!

Eyes the Color of Pond Scum Well yes, her family had always been a little bit... harsh when they teased her about her coloring. Green eyes and red hair were uncommon in her family - unseen for generations, to tell the truth...

But for decades, she's believed that her eyes held depth of beauty, and that ... View the Post