The Vivienne Files

Five New Pantone Colors, and Five “French Five-Piece” Wardrobes”

April 9, 2025

Pantone has graciously shared with us their color choices for the upcoming Autumn and Winter, taken from what they saw at the London Fashion Week. There are also colors from the New York week - I will look at them all...

There are a couple of reasons that I always like to visit these colors:

We all want to at least consider new accent colors from time to time, and this gives us a good opportunity to visualize what a new color might look like in a range of items - shoes, bag, earrings etc. For all of us who know our accent colors, there's often a color in these lists that very close to what we've already chosen. These posts give us a chance to see some new items in our favorite colors!

So I'm showing you five ... View the Post

April 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #6 – Street Lights by Stefan Johansson

April 8, 2025 It's snowing in Chicago. It might just be "lake-effect" snow - I live within sight of Lake Michigan - but it's still startling, in April. But this heroine, big fan of the warmest, most intense colors, is ready for Spring! As has been true for all of our heroines, her 16-piece wardrobe from the end of March would be a great wardrobe for travel that included a range of temperatures: This heroine feels that her colors are hard to find, and she therefore grabs things that she sees in her colors as soon as they're available. I'm not actually certain that these colors are all that rare; I suspect we might find that we need to really stock up on olive and off-white at some stage. But she's right - who could resist this ... View the Post

April 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #5 – Pines by the Sea by Bertha Lum

April 7, 2025

I think I say the same thing with every painting - if I were starting from scratch, THIS color palette would really tempt me...

One of the things that always attracts me are the 16-piece wardrobes. This is a level at which you're looking at an appropriate number of garments for travel - wear 3, pack 13. This wardrobe would cover you - literally - from cold weather (a down jacket stuffed into the outside pocket of your suitcase?) to quite warm days - a tee shirt and shorts, with sandals.

I'm just itching to travel... Which is good, since we're leaving for Ireland (Fingers crossed!) at the end of the month!!!

Our heroine's current wardrobe has three teal sweaters, which is a lot! But this happens sometimes ... View the Post

A New Goodie for You!

April 6, 2025 We've talked a lot about how useful the Weekly Timeless Wardrobe template is for planning - unless you live in a place that doesn't have a 4-season climate! So I went into the template and created EVERY possible combination of seasons that I think exist. (if you find more, please let me know!) You need a template with two Summer seasons and two Winter seasons? (I see you, snowbird!) It's there... Live somewhere that never gets terrible hot or cold? Now you can plan with two Springs and two Winters! I hope this is helpful for you. It's 70 pages (35 combinations, with both a clearly legible table of text and a "greyed out" table, so that you can write over it!), so it takes a minute or two to download. Thus, it's priced at ... View the Post

April 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #4 – Sun, Water Maine by Georgia O’Keeffe

April 4, 2025

This is such a great painting to look at when it's still SO COLD here in Chicago; it feels like water, and growing green things, and sand, and sun...

I always picture this wardrobe as something for someone who lives all year at a place that's a big summer vacation destination. She is always in touch with sand, sky and water, but wearing some warmer fabrics! This was her wardrobe at the end of March:

She was quite smitten with the navy dress post here from the end of March, so a navy shirt and pants seems like an easy way for a "non-dress" person to replicate that idea. As I said before - a navy column is a navy column!

Are the striped shoes too much? She was smitten, and sometimes you're going to buy ... View the Post

April 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #3 – Of by Elizabeth Magill

April 3, 2025

I really love this painting - so simple, such lovely colors, such texture...

This heroine's 16-piece "end of March" wardrobe in lovely, and would get one through quite a lot of travel:

This heroine was leaning toward warm weather clothes anyway - when she saw the foxglove dress, she knew for certain that she was on the right track! Neutral shorts and a matching tee shirt, and a pretty merino polo finish off her April shopping:

With her wardrobe augmented for warmer weather, this 20-piece capsule wardrobe could be used for round-the-world travel! (give me a suitcase and a ticket...)

Our heroine is all over the place with her Weekly Timeless Wardrobe plan, which kind of makes sense when ... View the Post

April 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #2 – The Swan No. 24 by Hilma Af Klint

April 2, 2025

I'm really liking this painting, and this wardrobe, more every month. The four colors in the background are perfect accents for the colors of the two swans - I wish all paintings were this easy to analyze!

At the end of March, our heroine's 16-piece wardrobe was pretty well organized, and would make a good travel capsule wardrobe for a destination with moderate temperatures - nothing too hot, nor too cold!

Our heroine already has three blush garments, including a quarter-zip fleece top. But she doesn't have a simple sweater, and so she grabs this one! Grey jeans and a grey tee shirt are in her color palette, but a kind of new feeling for her wardrobe. And if you want a tee shirt in a specific color - even a ... View the Post

April 2025 Six Paintings – 12 Months #1 – Eiffel Tower by Robert Delaunay

April 1, 2025

No, I don't do April Fool's Day jokes. Just not my style...

What I DO is look for a long time at beautiful paintings, and then dream of ways that we can internalize the beauty and colors from the paintings, and express that in our wardrobes! It's pretty fun...

Let's start with this beauty:

As March ends, with wind, rain and cold in Chicago, our heroine has this 16-piece wardrobe:

Maybe Spring has completely sprung where you live, but here in Chicago, we know (well, we TRY to remember!) that we aren't going to be consistently wearing warm-weather clothing until May. But that doesn't mean that we can't start looking at linen, and cotton sweaters, and SANDALS!!!

If we fit these new garments into our ... View the Post

10 Ideas for Wearing a Navy Ponte Knit Dress

March 31, 2025

It's a question that many of you ask - do I really need to own more than one dress? If I pick something really simple and classic, can't I just wear it for every "dress event" that I have?

To which I am - of course - going to reply "Heck yes!!!"

This dress is a wonderful candidate. Simple. Flattering. Ponte knit, which travels well, sheds wrinkles nicely, and has enough of a "neutral personality" that it can be dressed up or down with equal ease:

There's no real pattern or system to the ten ways I'm accessorizing this dress - I honestly just scrolled through all of my usual suspects for finding sweaters, shoes, scarves and jewelry. When I saw something that appealed or sparked my imagination, I proceeded!

First - ... View the Post

Pretty But Relaxed? Start With a Dress – Two Piece Linen Dress in Thistle from Alex Mill

March 28, 2025

A honeymoon? Somewhere warm? Sign me up!

She's all set for what to wear for her wedding, but her travel wardrobe is still under construction. She knows she's starting here:

There's no question that the weather will be warm where they're going - actually legitimately hot during the day! She has no plans to swim, but definitely intends to be at the beach.

And for once in her life, she's NOT going to worry about laundry. It's her honeymoon, for heaven's sake! Maybe not her first honeymoon, but that's neither here nor there...

So bridal white it is!

At this point, she decides she's going to pack all pretty pastels. It will be the last time in her life she does this, so she's going to do it ... View the Post

Adding a “Difficult” Color to Your Wardrobe – Alex Mill Moss linen shirt and skirt

March 26, 2025

Sometimes, you just love something, even though you know that it might take a bit of effort to incorporate it into your wardrobe. This two-piece dress might be a good example:

I searched for HOURS to find other garments in this shade of green/brown. A cardigan - a tee shirt - maybe a pair of shorts? Not to be found in my world...

But there's still a way. There's ALWAYS A way!

How about finding a scarf that's both perfect with the olive dress, and gorgeous?

If scarf designers are happy putting colors together, we can be pretty confident about using those colors in a wardrobe!

Note - for leather accessories, a color like this one is a good match with bronze leather. And the entire scarf-based color ... View the Post

Love Soft Accents? The Impressionist Bracelets by Fierce Lynx Designs

March 24, 2025

Beautiful bracelets! Always such a treat, and such an inspiration to the imagination...

There are four accent colors here, but I'm passing on the dark green and vivid gold for today - in the autumn, our heroine could certainly assemble an entirely different wardrobe in navy with those accents! How fun is that?

But for today, for Spring, we're going with pretty pastels:

Let's get our heroine started with some grey basics; any time you've got silver in jewelry, you can easily translate that to grey clothes. I suspect our heroine might have some grey hair? And blue/green eyes?

The weather's not all that warm where our heroine is, but her heart is set on pretty colors! She manages to find four tops that ... View the Post