travel wardrobe Archives - Page 8 of 13

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Wrapped Oranges by William J. McCloskey

March 29, 2016

This is the 1,500th post on The Vivienne Files! If you're looking here for a specific color scheme, or general ideal, I encourage you to go to Google and enter "The Vivienne Files" and then whatever things you'd like to find. The chances grow greater every day that you might find something helpful to you in my archives! And if you don't find it, let me know and I'll build it, some day. I've got no intentions of stopping now...And thank you, very humbly, and very sincerely, for your continued support of my efforts. You each mean so much to me!

love, Janice

On with the show!!!

What a simple, but lovely painting:

It's the kind of painting that you might walk right past during a museum visit, but ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Autumn Trees – The Maples by Georgia O’Keeffe

March 28, 2016 You have sent me SO MANY beautiful art ideas - I'm going to dedicate a few days to addressing some of them. Fear not, the "1 at a Time" wardrobes will be back....

A travel wardrobe not for the faint of heart - but what beautiful, subtle colors:

She Has 24 Hours Well, she could take longer, but her plan is to spend her entire 1st day in town walking around, looking, listening, feeling her responses. By the time she goes to bed the first night, she's going to decide - yes or no - if she's moving there.

If she decides that she won't move there, she has the rest of the long weekend to enjoy her time off. But if she decides yes, she has the rest of the long weekend to find an ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe of Accessories: Denim, Stone, Pink and Soft Blue, 1 at a Time

March 24, 2016

This wardrobe is such a nice mix of casual fabrics with soft and pretty accents, I thought that I would try to continue the theme of femininity in the accessories, without getting too girly or sissy... I love these challenges!The original wardrobe is from yesterday; this is the starter outfit:

While I felt that jeans and a sweatshirt strongly suggested boots, I limited my choices to softer colors or boots with a metallic sheen to them. A lady-like boot might be a stretch, but these at least have a lighter feel to them!For the first bag, I wanted to see something in the stone neutral, but with a bit of softness, or texture, or "pink-ness" to it...

An all-navy outfit strongly suggests a scarf that ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Asiatic God by Paul Klee

March 19, 2016 This looks a little bit clown-like on my screen, but in person it's much more compelling, with a lot of texture. Almost mysterious, dark, and captivating, with amazing color highlights.

Asiatic God – Paul Klee

The frame is maroon and grey, and there are tiny accents of teal... the pink on the face is, in fact, the color PUCE! (I was searching around for the precise RGB combination to show the color on the color wheel, and learned this...)

This cried out for denim, to serve as a base for texture and a variety of accent colors...

Yes, the image of this skirt is TERRIBLE, but I really wanted you to see this skirt. It's a departure from a lot of denim skirts, in that it seems to ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe of Accessories: Grey, Blue, Lilac and Black, 1 at a Time

March 18, 2016

The more I look at these colors, the more I like them; for a wardrobe with only 16 pieces, there are wide-ranging options from somber black to gentle pastels. This shows the possibilities of just a few pieces of carefully-chosen clothing.Here's the original wardrobe, and this was out starting point:

I thought it would be nice to show the possibility of some metallic accessories!

And small, simple, classic silver earrings...

But you are always going to want a pair of neutral shoes. (well, I'm sure someone out there would be happy wearing silver shoes every day. If that's you, then do it!)

The Ted Baker floral scarf was perfect with our first outfit, ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe of Accessories: Lime, Coral, Beige and Cream, 1 Piece at a Time

March 17, 2016 This wardrobe cried out for a bright floral tote bag... I managed to avoid the temptation and look for things a little bit more restrained. The original wardrobe step by step can be seen here; this was where we started:

Take care of the essentials first thing - shoes and a bag!

The coral color put me in the mood for some rose gold...

Some of these shoes you've seen before, but I like them, and I think they're terribly versatile!

The overall warm feeling of this wardrobe suggested GOLD to me.

Three choices here: (1) ornate, (2) small and simple, or (3) statement, but still streamlined. Choices are a good way to isolate what ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (1932) by Georgia O’Keeffe

March 15, 2016 There are so many different ways that this painting could be interpreted, but I kept seeing denim blue...

Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (1932) by Georgia O’Keeffe Of course, I can always revisit this painting, if you're interested....

The Closing? She's flying out to close on the new cabin. Everyone's horrified...

It's tiny. It's simple. And since she seems to have sold or donated about 90% of her possessions, it's going to be empty!

She prefers to think of it as simple. She wants to see the lines, the colors, and the textures around her. Not a bunch of stuff...

And yes, she plans to wear jeans to ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe of Accessories: Navy, Beige, Turquoise and Yellow, 1 at a Time

March 14, 2016 Maybe it's the unseasonably warm weather here in Chicago, but this wardrobe felt very summery to me...

We always have to start out with a couple of basic, essential accessories...

I thought that I'd introduce some pearls here - to pick up on the pearl/off-white color of the cardigan. I like to tie outfits together through these small, but powerful, little color "echoes."

Theoretically, this particular outfit would be better balanced with dark shoes, but I'm assuming that you're going to carry a dark bag, which will serve the same purpose. Let's not go completely nuts trying to do everything perfectly!

If you're an avowed "watch avoider," you can always just ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe in Cobalt, Black and Grey: 1 Piece at a Time

March 8, 2016

I knew that I had more black and grey wardrobe requests, so I thought I'd jump on another one right away and see how much difference a change of accent colors would make.First up, the hypothetical starter outfit:

It's a pretty somber outfit, but when you drape the scarf over the shoulders of the cardigan, or loop it insouciantly under the collar of the shirt, everything changes!

Although this outfit includes an Hermes scarf, I imagined that this was being put together for a woman who really needed some more casual clothes. First up is to consolidate a solid column of black, as well as build a sort of fake twin-set in black.

Here's where we start getting much more ... View the Post

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

I thought that this would be challenging, but I really enjoy the options provided by including both black and grey with these soft accent colors:

cardigan – J. Crew; shirt – Uniqlo;

scarf – Ted Baker London; trousers – J. Crew Factory

If you like florals, I can't encourage you enough to look at products from Ted Baker London. While not inexpensive, they are SO beautiful, and you really only need 1 piece to be the starting point, and the lynch pin, of a beautiful wardrobe.

cardigan – J. Crew; shirt – Uniqlo;

scarf – Ted Baker London; trousers – J. Crew Factory

While my first inclination was to buy the sweater to match the cardigan, I thought that instead I'd invest in another ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Madame Paul Escudier by John Singer Sargent

March 5, 2016 This arresting painting lives just down the street from me - I go visit it frequently!

These colors are luscious:

Your Biggest Client Called... And you're pretty fortunate that they complained about the service they were receiving, rather than just pulling the plug on your contract! But you're headed to the service center for a couple of days of... encouragement....

The keywords are calmness and quality.

You have to be careful not to be too much the "Home Office Person" because that will just alienate everyone. But you do want to show them, through every gesture, and every word, that you insist on the best possible work they can do, in a way that's not frantic in any ... View the Post