June 5, 2020
In the dead of winter, four years ago, we visited with this heroine when her friends invited her south for a long weekend to get out of the cold… I’m SO smitten with the color palette; if I were to start over, I admit that brown leather goods would tempt me!
Drive Down!
Her friends have invited her back…
Necklace – Timeless Pearly; earrings – Biko; tee shirt – Treasure & Bond; cardigan – Banana Republic; watch – Nixon; pants – Lands’ End; tote bag – Madewell; loafers – Samuel Hubbard
“We’ve on this kick where we have full-blown dinner parties every night. It’s been the same gang of us for the last few months; we could use a new guest!”
Faux tortoise earrings – Lauren Ralph Lauren; black earrings – Julie Vos; dotted tee – New York & Co.; black linen sweater – J.Crew; black & white sleeveless blouse – Uniqlo; black pendant – Alexis Bittar; nutmeg wrap top – Banana Republic; bracelets – Sunsoul; white shorts – Lands’ End; brown dress – Browns Fashion; black & white print skirt- Uniqlo; pinstriped pants – GAP; black dress – Lands’ End; black sandals – Camper; brown sandals – Caslon
“Since you’ve been quarantined for a couple of months, and so have we, can we assume that we’re safe for each other?”
“My brother and sister-in-law are staying in the guest house, so you can take the upstairs suite; with the kids home from college, that gives us 8 for dinner!
You can work all day in your room; I’m happy to bring you some coffee and toast in the morning, and you can just come forage for lunch…”
This sounds kind of fun – a house full of adults, lots of cooking, a deck from which to watch birds, and then gaze at stars…
Sigh…
love,
Janice
p.s. Just last year I shared with you a lovely Chic Sighting from O’Hare Airport, and a wardrobe that I assembled to honor the most stylish young woman I met….
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Dear Janice,
when I came across your original Shelduck-post for the very first time it had struck me: that’ s it, that’ s me. Love at first sight!
Having already been very much a black and white person anyway, like your heroine I learnt very fast that saddle-leather colored accessories not only are almost always very good quality, but in my opinion they also give a monochromatic outfit that bit more finesse compared to black or white ones. And don’ t even let me get started on the advantages and versatility of this color-scheme.
To cut the story short: although it’ s really not difficult to build a wardrobe in this color palette (once you gave me the idea), I am so happy that you picked up the Shelduck-theme once more and the brown linen-dress is just fantastic!
Thanks for your constant inspiration; your ideas – and also your narratives – are something I’ m looking forward to every day!
I love this capsule – the color combination and the actual items!
The colours aren’t for me but it’s very well balanced and I do like the slouchy white cardigan. I have a similar one in light grey. I’ve not thought of stripes and dots in the same outfit but curiously it does work.
I like the jewellery choices, though the Alexis Bittar pendant is no longer on their website.
In the England, we can now meet up in groups of six from different households for picnics and BBQs on gardens and outside spaces but we are not allowed to have meals in other people’s houses or stay over. So if you think it might rain, take an umbrella.
Janice,
So chic , even if I don’t wear black, I am loving your selections !
Lovely capsule. I especially wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your “divider lines”. Today’s dinner settings are perfect. I also have smiling memories of the currency signs you used for our fraud-busting heroine ;-) Thanks for the morning fun!
There was less mixing of black and brown in the sample outfits than I would have expected…only 2 of 12. It makes me wonder if a couple prints that include both black and brown…say, a top and a scarf…would have made this mixing a lot easier. I mean, it’s perfectly fine to have these colors but not wear them together very much, but for a travel wardrobe of this size, I’d probably want to be able to mix all 3 colors together easily.
Outfit #11 with the chestnut top and black pants works to my eye because the chestnut seems like the focal color with black pants as a very common and expected supporting neutral (I think black pants are so normative that it’s easier to accept them dropping into an otherwise unrelated outfit). But I felt distinctly meh about outfit #8 with the black dress and brown accessories. Pretty much any metallic or non-neutral color added to the black dress in a bundle of 3 accessories would look right to me (and the brighter, the better), but less so with the brown. I really need to see something that has both black and brown in it to harmonize the combination…even if it’s just a bracelet with both black and brown. If the heroine has hair that matches these warm browns, that helps but still doesn’t fully work for me because I then want the dress to be almost anything that isn’t black. If I re-imagine the dress as navy instead of black, then I’m perfectly content with it as is.
Georgeous palette. Loving the brown leather as an alternative to black!
Love this color combination, very classic. I wonder if there is any way to incorporate the red of the duck’s bill. Maybe red lipstick? Or in a brown, black, white scarf? Just a tiny touch of red.
Oh definitely lipstick, and nail polish, and a scarf…. Absolutely! If you look back at the original post, I think I included lipstick and polish. Good thinking!
hugs,
Janice
LOVE this color combination. I’ve just started wearing camels and browns again and love seeing how well it works with and breaks up my predominantly black wardrobe. I’ve also added some some lighter blues, for summer, which also work well with both neutrals. Thanks always for your fabulous, informative posts, and lovely stories, you are brilliant
Beautiful colors & nice pieces! I’d love to see some of the deep green of the duck’s head & neck added: it would be great, & festive, if you could find iridescent items, but I realize they may be hard to find–maybe in a scarf with a sheen to it, corduroy, velvet, velour etc. That deep shimmery green reminds me that I had a velvet blazer & dressy flats in sort of a textured patent leather in that color.
This sounds like you’ve got your Christmas outfit sorted! You’ll look amazing. I’ll join you in shimmering purple or teal. We’ve noticed as we walk round our local lake that some of the mallard drakes have green heads and some purple. Odd that.
Thanks, Beth T! Your purple will be lovely! Wow, interesting that some have purple heads!
decades ago i was in scotland and craftspeople who made saddles were losing their business. so they turned to making purses. they were gorgeous. one of the regrets of my life is not buying one for dirt cheap.
I have forgotten how beautiful black and cognac are together. Wow! I was looking online at Saks fifth ave at Eileen Fisher and I thought of you, Janice. They are now showing just the picture of the clothing item, no model. How easy is that. Thanks for giving me a daily dose of lovely. I hope this helps. patval
I absolutely LIVE the matching blouse and skirt concept. You get a “dress,” a blouse you can wear with skirts, pants, shorts under jackets, blazers & cardigans. And then you have a skirt you can wear numerous ways. I keep searching for a suitable set— this would be awesome if I were building on black neutrals, but you’re giving me hope!
My experience of wearing matching skirt and blouse ensemble is that you will get more versatility and wear out of both items if you to choose one of your neutral colours and if it’s patterned, then it’s better if its monochrome or tonal within that neutral colour. Or contains one of your neutrals as the base colour.
Three of the ensembles I wore in my 20’s in the 1980’s, were based on my accent colours – deep red, teal and purple in winter and pastel florals in summer. I found that I wore them as a suit or the skirt with a variety of plain tops or textured jumpers. The blouse didn’t get much of an airing. However two had navy blue as a base colour for the floral pattern or within the pattern itself. As navy is one of my neutrals, the blouse and skirt were equally versatile and I got a lot more wear out of them.
They did seem to go out of fashion for a long time but I’m glad that they are being brought back in mix and match capsule collections. Last year I bought a black and white snake print skirt from Roman Originals. Quite a while later I found the matching top (new with tags) in a charity shop for a bargain price. I had been wearing the skirt in winter with plain coloured blouses and jumpers. The short sleeve matching top takes it into summer. The pattern of the top over the skirt, when together, match so perfectly that with a silver sparkly belt it looks like a dress.
Hope you find an ensemble soon.
The original Shelduck post inspired my travel wardrobe to Europe back when it posted. I fell in love with wearing cognac shoes as a counterpoint to all the unrelieved black I tend to wear nonstop. Now I have a cognac bag and a cognac belt – I only wear one at a time though! I don’t like the matchy-matchy bag, belt and shoes look. You are such an inspiration with classic clothes that stand up to the test of time. I love how you choose brands that are a mix of affordability. It wasn’t until I read your blog that I discovered those investment pieces are often the backbone of a good wardrobe. Thank you Janice for your well-thought-out wardrobe curating!
I have always loved black, white, and cognac, and often base travel capsules on these colors. I do tend to rely on some patterned pieces to tie everything together. And I frequently add blue denim, usually jeans or a jean jacket. – nancyo
I love everthing about this wardrobe. I started wearing cognac shoes with black a few years ago. It feels very modern to me. I’ve always liked two piece dresses like this. I made several back in the eighties from cotton or cotton blend print fabrics . I found that one issue was that I tended to wash the blouses more often than the skirts, even if I wore them together. The blouse faded more than the matching skirt which meant that I could no longer wear them together.