July 30, 2012
Brown dress – La Garconne, bracelet – Folli Follie, silk scarf – Hermès, flats – Mia, earrings – Andrea Mader, tote bag – Modalu, orange wedges – J. Crew
Brown dress – La Garconne, knot earrings – Anna Beck, woven bag – Kate Spade, gold woven ballet flats – Dorothy Perkins, necklace – Lauren by Ralph Lauren, clutch bag – Miller & Jeeves, turquoise flats – Forzieri
Brown dress – La Garconne, earrings – LK Designs, scarf – Modcloth, coral flats – Fashion Union, yellow hoop earrings – Kate Spade, yellow bag – Dooney & Bourke, yellow flats – Avec Moderation
Brown dress – La Garconne, earrings – Annette Ferdinandsen, brown ballet flats – Fitzwell, scarves – Etro, red & gold bracelet – Kenneth Jay Lane, red pumps – Stuart Weitzman
love,
Janice
Love your ensemble blog! It's so packed with options and ideas. It's been very useful as I've been rebuilding my wardrobe.
May I pose an idea?
A travel lightly blog for a Fall European river cruise, where you are with the same people for two weeks and packing must be light. Based with two pairs of shoes and one crossbody bag. And for me, no scarfs (I haven't found a way to wear them, that is doesn't look like stuffing on my short, wide, no-neck, big chest body).
Where do you add color? Vests, bracelets, earrings?
Autumn colors-brown, orange, yellow.
Theresa from http://www.robertsongallery.wordpress.com
Non-bulky, long (oblong) scarves in cotton or linen or silk or wool (depending on season), simply left dangling or casually and loosely knotted about mid-section, can be very slimming. I speak as an expertly short, wide person. :)
Janice, this series is very interesting. But a trend question–when you did the first one, I thought the dress looked like a black hefty bag but this entire series now seems to be ultra loose, straight oversized shifts–is this a new trend? (it looks like it on La Garconne's website!) I'm often off-trend but trying to improve a little. Just worried that I'll look like a bratwurst.
Well, lots of people complained when I did the sheath dresses that they were too slim, too narrow, too figure-conscious…. So I looked for dresses that were unstructured for this series! I don't know that they're necessarily a trend; they seem to be always available from someone. If I were to get a dress like this, the first thing I would do would be to have it nipped in a bit around the middle to give it some shape, but your preference could vary!
Janice, you do such a fabulous job. I understand that some don't want to wear a sheath and others don't want to wear a shift. I have an even different request. I am 5'8" tall and just a smidge overweight. (I'm working on it with Weight Watchers). I am 60 years old. I look my best in a dress that is very slightly BELOW my knees
This sort of dress is SO hard to find. I have a few (Eileen Fisher, DVF (from last year) and couple of others). I have nice curves and don't mind showing them. I would love to find dresses that can be casual OR dressed up with the right jewelry and accessories. Can you work with this?
Splendid, superb, stunning. You're a genius!
Still liking the aqua and salmon choices!
You're an artist!
ann.about.town just said it best…you are INDEED an artist; a limitless wellspring of ideas, and I've just never seen anything like it! So many great combos, wonderful ideas and pairings. I really love lately how you've been combining those rich, deep plums/dark violet with gray and black and navy; I never would have thought it…and I love the fuschias (is that how you spell it?!) or magenta with the plums. Rich, sumptuous, gorgeous. I LOVE YOUR BLOG. Have a lovely time in Ireland, lucky girl! Report back soon, and we shall all live vicariously through your travels, dressed appropriately (and fun), of course. I'm feeling some green coming on…I do love clear, true kelly green and rarely know what to mix it with; what doesn't help is that I've read green doesn't look very good against maturing facial skin (maybe that's erroneous). As for inspiration from art, first thing coming to my mind is what you could do with a Monet; also, isn't it Cezanne who painted with some rich color (I'm seeing vivid orange fish in a fishbowl atop a table); and I can see that velvety pink of Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World" (her dress, against the straw-colored hill) or the Mary Cassatt painting that featured a roomful of turquoise-upholstered/fabric-covered boudoir furniture. It does seem you could use art and nature to no end…for instance, take one flower and see its blend of colors (my tulips last year were orange with streaks of hot pink, or was it vice versa; aren't pansies often the dark purple with shots of yellow; etc.); SO much fun. Bird of paradise plants can be a mix of blue and oranges. Wow, a photo of autumn colors in New England could become a warm grouping of browns, rust, dark reds, gold. I lived somewhere once where a ginko tree would shed leaves turned bright-and-then-palest yellow on the ground. Something about that pale yellow on green lawn reminded me of lemons…you know, lemon rind against its green stem. Or any kind of sunset, with oranges and pinks and yellows and fading blue sky. Or moonrise with its silvery hues. Even my cat is his own ombre palette of whites, grays, black. In my other life, I remember traveling in my 20s on a one-time, whirlwind budget tour of central Europe, loving the look of the Mediterranean/Cote d'Azur far below a road lined with terra cotta walls from which spilled bright pink bougainvillea, the sea itself being multi-colored hues of blues, greens. Then there are the lavender fields of Provence. Or muted pastels of the Grand Canyon here in the U.S.A.; the Arizona/Southwest desert. Conjures up images of linen with me.
It never ceases to amaze me that the color combinations which I would never have considered are gorgeous together. I am beginning to think that our choices are only limited by our imagination and taste. I used to wear and love browns, rusts and golds. But when my hair turned grey (then blonde- go figure) I was a little lost in my color choices. Perhaps a return to a more heathered brown and softer combinations of the warm colors would work. Again, your work is genius. And thank you.
Janice, I've thought a lot about your blog, about how much I learn (everyday!) from it, and about what makes it so remarkable (beyond the profligate energy, creativity, and generosity of invention of it, I mean.) Your pairings are so brilliant because they create totally unexpected visual harmonies without being matchy-matchy or perversely discordant (cf. the way In Style magazine wants to teach the young and celebrity-fawning to use deliberately mis-matched and jaring accessories). But as all the fervent testimonials on your comment pages testify, this isn't just about clothes. If "Clothes make the man," they even more, perhaps, make the woman, especially the woman of a certain age who wants to reinvent herself and gain her confident stride one transfigured suitcase and closet at a time. You are brilliant at this. We all thank you.
Beautiful colour combinations and brown has always been my most favourite neutral. Brown with red or yellow would have never occured to me before. Your blog has been such an inspiration that I check it every day and then shop my closet. Lovely.
I have a peachy/pink cashmere turtle neck sweater, and for some reason never considered wearing it wit gray pants. Now, I will. Thank you!
Nice shoes collections!!!! Uniforms