warm weather Archives - Page 30 of 37

Start With a Bag: Longchamps Tote

March 13, 2015 Sigh... The happy owner of this lovely bag wanted me to style it with bright colors. Believe me, I've been working toward that goal for a few days, and it just never looked good... But this bag is ideally suited as a way to integrate earth tones and black into a lovely warm-weather travel ensemble. And of course... the bag's no longer available. But you really should check out the Longchamp site from time to time, because they always do special editions that are wonderful. Some day, they might have something perfect for you!

Yes, the earrings are bamboo styled. You don't want to overdo that kind of thing, but I thought a bit of matching would be sort of ... View the Post

Start with Art: Still Life with Bottle by Samuel John Peploe

March 11, 2015 Ah, this made me think of warm weather, leisure, simplicity, being outdoors...

Yes, it's a cardigan, but it's relaxed, and it's linen! When choosing loafers for this trip, I would make sure that they were low enough cut over the foot so that they would look nice with shorts, worn without socks. I'd even travel without socks, although I think I'd want some sort of little socklet/footie for in the airport. Barefoot in the airport gives me the willies!

If you're only going away for a few days, a Six-Pack is the perfect way to pack. These clothes would fit into the smallest tote... (No, this dress has not been made to measure for someone - the brand name is ... View the Post

Start With Art: Peripheral Vision 2 by Elis Cooke, or How to Pack for a Casual Vacation in France

February 23, 2015

A recent request prompted this capsule: lightning up burgundy/grey/forest green into brighter cranberry, light mossy green and grey - specifically for a 3-week trip to France this spring. A lovely trip, and beautiful colors with which to work! Just for fun, I searched (and searched) until I found a painting to complement this idea:

For our purposes, I isolated these colors, but there's also clearly an opportunity for white, cream, and a gentle blue, as well as a touch a deeper charcoal. This painting could generate a palette with which one could live forever.

As always, our travel outfit includes closed-toe shoes, a cardigan, and a scarf. But this ... View the Post

Start With a Scarf: Le Voyage de Pytheas by Hermes

February 20, 2015 A couple of days ago in this post, I included this page:

And someone asked if I could build a wardrobe around this scarf. Since I already had a clear vision about the details of the scarf, and the color scheme was familiar, it was pretty straightforward!

Maybe because I'm freezing my toenails off, or maybe because I've received lots of questions about seeing some warm-weather travel capsules, but I pictured this as a long weekend to a warm destination. (PLEASE notice that I included starfish earrings to go with the fish mosaic border of this scarf; it's details like this that keep me amused!)

This would keep you covered for a few days, ... View the Post

Start With Art: Wildlife near the Gosse Range – Albert Namatjira

January 29, 2015 There's really no question that I'm going to be looking at warm weather clothing!

Although the overall look of this painting is very light and bright, I always feel more comfortable anchoring a wardrobe with a few pieces of dark neutral, so I took advantage of the birds to work a dark brown into the scheme. The rosy beige of the sky is my 2nd neutral, and after that, the sky's the limit - pastels taken from the grass, the trees, and the distant mountains are all possibilities. What lovely colors...

I would start collecting pastel, bone, earthy accessories...

love, Janice ... View the Post

White Capsule Wardrobe with Grey, Turquoise, or Celadon Green Accessories

January 24, 2015 For now, I'm finishing up this idea of monochromatic outfits and "accessory families" with some summery white linen items. (yes, they look sort of beige or ivory on the page, because white on white would be an incomprehensible blizzard...) Since the available linen white shoes are limited in January, I decided to grab some shoes that match or tone with the accessories - always a fun option! And for the elusive celadon, I chose some gold sandals; metallic are always worth remembering when you're struggling with a shoe color choices.

I'm starting to work on some more "Start With Art" wardrobes - anybody have some ... View the Post

Start With Art: A Shelf of Books -> a Summer Wardrobe

November 7, 2014 You really, seriously, can get inspiration anywhere, if you keep your eyes and your aesthetic heart open to what's out there. This absolutely wonderful picture was sent to me - what a delightful mix of softly faded colors.

It wasn't at all hard to come up with a color scheme. Many of you ask about how I build color wheels - I use the graphing gizmo in PowerPoint. I use PowerPoint for all of my vignettes, because it does everything I need. Just insert a graph into a slide, and then change the colors and sizes of the various wedges to suit your preferences. You have a new, beautiful mnemonic for your wardrobe colors, AND you have a new skill to put on your ... View the Post

Start With Art: Call of the Loon by Ewoud de Groot

November 6, 2014

There's a lot of beauty here, and colors galore...

I settled on these, using ink blue as my base neutral. Realistically, you could choose anything soft and muted in the green/blue/purple family and be extremely successful.

This is for someone subdued, a little bit dressy, going away for a couple of days to a warmer destination. Maybe not the beach, but someplace where lighter fabrics will be comfortable. The dotted texture of the water is echoed in the first scarf, and the floral earring and pewter loafers are feminine but not girlish.

A linen dress, a silk skirt and a couple of tops, along with some pretty accessories are all you ... View the Post

Pretty Much The Perfect Pack

August 8, 2014

Although I had relatively little lead-up time for my trip two weeks ago, I feel like I had the perfect assortment with me. This was a relatively easy trip for which to pack, because I knew my activities ahead of time, I knew the weather conditions, and I had access to laundry facilities - sort of the packing trifecta!While I almost always travel in pants, this time I just slid leggings under my favorite linen dress in order to stay warm in flight. This crossbody bag is a fairly new purchase, and I really like it - it's light, lays flat, and holds quite a bit. I admit that I might have been tempted to get the next size larger, so that my tablet would fit in it...

Please note that these are not ... View the Post

Start with Art: Lucy Hessel at the Seashore by Edouard Vuillard

June 4, 2014 My readers have the very best taste; this painting was sent to me to consider for a "Start With Art", and I thought the colors were so beautiful!The mood of this painting - languid, soft, dreamy, relaxed - made me think of a honeymoon, or a second honeymoon...

These were my color choices:

If you wanted to pack for a second honeymoon, you could certainly do worse than this!

As always, a well-chosen handful of outfits selected with a unifying theme will give you lots of options.

love, Janice ... View the Post

Start with Flowers: Cherry Blossoms

June 3, 2014

In an otherwise extremely unremarkable outdoor mall, we found this lovely tree (proving that if you look for beauty, you WILL find it):

I'm pretty certain it was an ornamental cherry tree - I'll check back later this summer to see if, in fact, it produces cherries! But what really caught my eye was the juxtaposition of the grey/taupe of the tree bark, and the surrounding pavement, with the green, white and yellow of the flowers. So (you know me) I thought of color schemes for travel and summer...

Lots of lovely options available here! If you have some nice floral photographs, send them on - [email protected]. I'll do what I ... View the Post

Choosing a Scarf: A Bright Summer Accent

May 31, 2014

Some of us aren't going to be wearing white all summer long, nor will pastel accessories work really well for everybody. So I'm going to revisit the idea of buying a summer scarf, but this time working with a base of navy linen clothes... The idea of picking up a couple of bright accessories to update my summer wardrobe is very tempting!These are the scarves:

Red Cayenne linen blend scarf – Halogen, Blue Blithe linen blend scarf – Halogen, turquoise gem linen scarf – Halogen, gold shine linen blend scarf – Halogen, pink cyclamen linen blend scarf – Halogen, blue royal linen blend scarf - Halogen And the simple navy garments:

Top – Hobbs, shorts – Dorothy Perkins, dress – ... View the Post