Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature
April 15, 2015
It was pointed out to me that this lovely nubuck suede jacket (thanks, House of Fraser!) would also look lovely with navy... so I'm taking us on an imaginary long weekend in Paris this time...
love, Janice
Looking Back:
2014: Chic Sightings: Dots! 2013: Project 333: My First Week in "My" Uniform 2012: Packing: Brown and Turquoise ... View the Post
I was toying around with the new Pantone colors for spring, thinking about upcoming posts for The Vivienne Files. The idea of "new" colors is always entertaining to me - I'd LOVE it if our eyes could suddenly be enhanced to see something that we've never seen before!
But some people do find that the Pantone colors are very available through the upcoming season, and like to have an idea about which among them might work best with their existing wardrobe. So by the time I'd finished monkeyed around with all of these colors, I realized that I'd pretty much completely updated the old Color Planner document...
This baby includes all of the combinations of 2 neutrals (from the list of 14 neutrals that I've come up with, so far), and then ... View the Post
April 11, 2015 This spring is a festival of Eileen Fisher! There's an Eileen Fisher Company Store in Schaumburg, in the west Chicago suburbs, which is a wonderful place to shop if you have both a plan and some discipline! Couple that with being able to get Eileen Fisher clothes at every department store in Chicago, and the canny shopper can often scare up some good deals! So, for this upcoming warm weather period, I've got a new red twinset-ish sort of arrangement, as well as a pewter cardigan, a GORGEOUS silver silk jacket, and my engineering-striped dress. (the black dress I bought in New York qualifies as a neutral, if anything ever did...)
I'm just going to work with five simple black ... View the Post
April 10, 2015
If you do a lot of reading about wardrobe planning, you'll run into the concept of cost per wear. It's a pretty simple idea - you just remember what you paid for something, and then you figure out how many times you've worn something, and you divide.
If you get something expensive and don't wear it very often (like a $200 sweater that you wear 4 times - a CPW of $50), your cost per wear is pretty poor. Conversely, if you get a great tee shirt for $30, and wear it every week for two years your CPW in 30/104, or teeny little pennies... So it's only logical that if you've got something that has a great, low cost per wear, you can say that you got your money's worth, much more than the expensive ... View the Post
April 9, 2015
I clearly am doing something wrong in the blogging world, because after blogging for 4 years, I just NOW have received my first "swag" i.e. a gift from a retailer! Other bloggers seem to be swamped with gifts, but that's not my experience... sigh... But the lovely people at House of Fraser sent me this gorgeous item, pictured below! It's nubuck suede, which is the best stuff available! Well-made, too... When I lived in Ireland, I remember that when you absolutely wanted to buy clothes, your best option was to hop onto the LUAS tram, and take it south to the Dundrum Shopping Center, where the only House of Fraser in the area was located. Their store was like an oasis of nice things in an absolute SEA of ... View the Post
April 8, 2015
Here's where a really amazing variety of possibilities begins. I'm starting with the simplest of stripes, but even with stripes there can be all sorts of variations. Imagine, for example, a mostly beige tee shirt with the thinnest white stripe, or conversely, a mostly white top with a very subtle beige stripe. The balance of color WITHIN the top will also influence how the balance of the entire outfit works. You could get really obsessive about this if you let yourself...
One thing I hear that many of you find challenging is the "dumpy" or "square" proportions of the jeans and cardigans. Frankly, I chose these items partly with that in mind - I really wanted the colors of the garments to be what we noticed - especially ... View the Post
April 7, 2015
Here's where the fun starts, for me! As an avowed fan of scarves and what they can accomplish to balance, accent, and just generally jazz up, I was happy when we get to the patterned scarf part of our experiment..
I've owned these black and white loafers a COUPLE of times in the past (literally, I believe they've been making these since the '80's) and I always wear them to death. And I'm embarrassed to confess that the Trotters loafers are, in fact, beige and dark brown. On my monitor, the trim looks black! I truly didn't know the "real" colors until I was almost finished.... sigh...
And you can always find deck shoes in a ton of color combinations...
I personally now really like the first two outfits, but ... View the Post
April 6, 2015 Because of the holidays and some family visit, I got to spend a lot of time with B and his peeps this week. It was handy to be able to just grab clothes and feel confident about putting together attractive outfits... This skirt is fast becoming a workhorse in my wardrobe. It hangs beautifully, and has pockets!!!
I had the immense good luck to find red Tod's loafers at a site called The Real Real. (silly name, but a great site) The price was a single-digit FRACTION of retail...
I will take a better photograph of the scarf when there's sufficient good lighting - it's really excellent, with strong blue and red accents on a charcoal grey and white ground. I'm finding a lot ... View the Post
2014: Mood Boards, Style Boards, Inspiration Boards...
2013: A simple navy and pink summer wardrobe, with accessories
2012: Just because I really like you... ... View the Post
Looking Back:
2014: A New Favorite French Book...
2013: How to wear a lavender (lilac? light purple?) v-neck sweater ... View the Post
April 3, 2015
For this 2nd step in my pondering about proportion, I want to introduce some shoes into the equation, as well as a solid-color scarf. I didn't find that I felt the scarf was "necessary" as often as I had expected - sometimes a pair of shoes made enough difference in the proportion of the outfit that the scarf, while fun, might be superfluous.
For these first two outfits, shoes that matched the cardigan lent enough "gravity" to the outfit that I didn't really reach for a scarf. Out fit 3 is more problematic - in screaming hot weather, white sandals might work, but white shoes made this look really "uniform", in the medical profession sense. Maybe the beige scarf and loafers would be better?
These outfits felt a lot ... View the Post
April 2, 2015
Recently, someone wrote to me with an excellent question: she had narrowed down her wardrobe colors to black, white and beige, but wasn't sure how to combine these colors. Specifically, she was concerned about what percentage of each color could be in an outfit and still be balanced.
A question for the ages, really. There are limitless possibilities for combining simple colors. So I decided to put together the most simple outfits in those three colors, and see how the proportions felt.
For starters, I picked a plain tee shirt, jeans, and a classic cardigan in the three colors my friend mentioned. From these 9 garments, there are 27 possible 3-piece outfits, as well as an additional 9 2-piece outfits. Imagine the ... View the Post
