January 8, 2021
It was a gift, and she adored it immediately:
They had talked for a while about her interest in expanding her black and white wardrobe, and she thought that this scarf might be the perfect catalyst.
She held it for a while, and looked at it closely… Eventually, she isolated this color palette:
She doesn’t plan to quit wear white, but she feels like it will be… de-emphasized in the future.
Right now, this is her Common Wardrobe. She’s been quite happy with this, so far, through the cooler weather:
Black and white tee shirts – L.L.Bean; flannel shirt – L.L.Bean; black and white turtlenecks – L.L.Bean; cardigan – L.L.Bean; cashmere v-neck sweater – L.L.Bean; pearl-trimmed ruana – Echo; jeans – L.L.Bean; knit pants – L.L.Bean; corduroy pants – J.Crew; skirt – Express
Since mid-October, she’s been wearing these pieces and very few other things – some days she wore gym clothes, and the occasional day saw nothing but pajamas (tell me you’ve NEVER done that…). Even though there are only 12 garments here, there are plenty of choices:
But moving into the New Year, she wants to experiment with Fiona Ferris’ “Garde-Robe du Mois” (Monthly Wardrobe) of 21 garments, as described in her book “The Chic Closet”.
Okay… a goal of 21 garments, starting with 12.
So she wants to add 9 things.
In 3 colors.
This isn’t rocket science!
She starts with camel; camel and black are natural together!
Heather khaki sweater-blazer – J.Crew; turtleneck – J.Crew; mid-rise skinny chinos – Banana Republic
Of course, she can see possibilities already! A camel “suit” of sorts, and a column of camel…
Next up she ponders the reddish rust color… She’s not convinced that she wants pants or a skirt in that color! She realizes that these 3 pieces don’t have to match perfectly; their role might be more as accents to her black things, or to her new camel clothes:
Burnt caramel brown blouse – Banana Republic; mulled cranberry red – Banana Republic; cardigan – American Eagle
And finally, that lovely soft blue! Jeans would be a perfect choice here, but for cooler weather she thinks that corduroy pants might be a softer choice. A classic sweater is always a good idea, and the plaid shirt… it’s short, but can still be worn under a sweater, or open over a tee shirt:
All of this feels right somehow, but how does it LOOK?
Subtle, almost gentle, but with a great deal of variety!
Still, it wouldn’t be a well-planned wardrobe unless our heroine walked her way through a range of possible outfits!
Note that these outfits only include ONE of the 9 “accent” garments – there are certainly a lot of outfits possible if (for example) 2 of the camel pieces were worn together, or the blue sweater with the blue pants, or the rust cardigan over the camel column…
For those of us who have wondered if we could be happy wearing just 21 garments for an entire month, I think a wardrobe like this could give us some encouragement that we would have enough choices!
That said, I’ve been living in gym clothes since the gym in our building has (very guardedly) re-opened!
love,
Janice
p.s. I have to flash back to one of my all-time favorite wardrobes – very small, very simple, and quite elegant, in black and camel with a teal accent!
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A truly wonderful collection. I can’t wait for colder weather here to try these combinations.
It is a wonderful collection. AND switching out the rust for red, I can shop my closet for almost everything! I’ll have to try some of these ideas… Have a great weekend everyone!
Not just one William Morris pattern but two! I like the juxtaposition of soft blue and red together. It shouldn’t work but it does and two cushions, in the same design as the scarf, would be perfect in my lounge.
The two blues in the main part and the border are also tonally different but could work together. I wish I could wear camel but it just washes me out. I’d probably choose ivory instead and gold accessories. I would like to see accessories with this wardrobe.
Love the story for the look back which is a romantic escape. Following the links, there are in fact four wardrobes to look at and I’d love to see it assembled altogether. After all, the fifth instalment (please) may see her spending a longer time in Paris and she will need to be prepared…
Accessories PLEASE!!!
Janice,
If I substituted a medium dark denim blue for the black, this group would work for me too. Something that I have discovered about myself in 2020 is that I could wear the same jeans and off white top all week ( though I wouldn’t) as long as I kept changing the topper to either another accent color or a coordinating neutral .
Having reread “ The Chic Closet” I realize that upon the first read, I had overlooked her idea of changing the styles of her monthly collection, based upon the season. For instance, she described wearing woven shirts in the Spring and Fall with her jeans, but switching those out for fine knit tops in the Winter, and dresses in Summer . As a craver of variety , that adds an element of seasonal change above just color switching. It’s strange , but with the exception of desiring a few more printed tops or toppers, I am having no sense of need of shopping for more clothes ! And yet I continue to delight in your posts to glean how to improve the color coordination and maximize the usage with the least amount of garments ! Closet nirvana !
And let me add that I am thrilled to see 3 accent colors added to the group ( the camel which I would ordinarily call a neutral , looks more like a dark blush on my screen) ! That floats my boat ! Neutralish , a warm and a cool plus some pattern !
You’ve convinced me – The Chic Closet is next on my reading list!
This is the most brilliant explanation of how to put together a capsule. I finally get it’! Start with basic common wardrobe in colors of ones choice (12). Then add your favorite accent colors…could be 2, 3 or 4 of them, and divide by 9. Pick items in these 2,3 or 4 colors that will be used with your basics. DONE! Everything works. As they say, :”Keep it simple, stupid”!
Thanks and Happy New Year to you, Janice. You don’t know it but 4 years ago when I came across the Vivienne Files you changed my world. Since age 7 when I had a traumatic shopping experience, I HATED buying clothes. I spent $50/year my whole life (if that) on my wardrobe, many times $0. Luckily I had a career that demanded I wear paint clothes (I am a scenic artist and paint set for TV, movies and Broadway). I would go from paint clothes to night gown every day for 35 years! At age 65, I came across your Start with Art blogs and for the first time ever, I understood how to put together an outfit. I had NEVER known. I had NEVER cared. Being an artist, this idea caught my eye and opened up a new wonderful world. I have now bought so many clothes, Hermes scarves, shoes, accessories, etc. that my family and friends cannot believe the change in me. I love color…duh! so why had I never thought to use my knowledge of color to get dressed each day? The same principals work whether youre creating a painting, an outfit or decorating a room. You, my dear, have cost me thousands of dollars! I now have to stop buying anything new cause my closet are overflowing with beauty. I’m at the curating my closet stage, creating my own personal style.
Enough, so there you have it. I’ve wanted to thank you for all these years. My Mon, Wed and Fri mornings with coffee and Vivienne Files are highlights of my week. Bless you! ~Hallie
Dear Hallie,
WHAT A COOL JOB!!!! Big envy here…
And thank you so much for your kind words – they mean the world to me. Nobody can know how much some positive feedback makes my entire life feel so much better…
big digital hugs,
and lots of love,
Janice
This scarf is gorgeous! Exactly the kind of thing that inspires a “my precious” from me.
It’s interesting how different the color palette shown here is from what I’d imagined. I would have chosen the soft pinky-red color rather than the rusty red. My camel would have been a bit more golden (though I do approve of the lovely camel here). And the blue…therein lies the biggest challenge with this scarf…that is not an easy blue to work with! (Or as Beth T points out, blues.) The blue items chosen are probably as good as it gets, and yet they just doesn’t work for me. Nor can I come up with a single blue item I already own that feels right; even denim feels less like “I’m picking up the blue from the scarf” and more like “I give up, I’m using a neutral.”
That said, it would be gorgeous with outfits combining black and camel. But the question mark over the ambiguous blues would ultimately be a deal breaker for me at this price point, even if I were cultivating a black-based wardrobe. I think it would be too hard to integrate the scarf with blue accent pieces.
This was definitely useful practice in moving from “OMG gorgeous WANT” to “OK, but how would it work for me and my wardrobe”…a thought process that doesn’t always happen automatically!
I think this denim blue is gorgeous and versatile with all of the other colours and neutrals! Outfits with jeans can be interesting and beautiful, especially with nice accessories.
Yes! The scarf is gorgeous – I have such a soft spot for William Morris – but I would choose different accents than this heroine did. Jeans would be a given for me, because, well, I’m me and I love jeans, but I’d choose a pretty blue as well, maybe in the peacock or prussian blue range. A brighter red and a warmer caramel or even mustard would round it out for me. Different strokes for different folks. – nancyo
I agree with you both that the scarf would look terrific with jeans (and I’m 100% you will take my jeans from my cold dead hands kind of person). My problem is that my eye is so accustomed to blue jeans as a neutral that I struggle to switch back and view them as a shade of blue accent! Even though they are obviously a shade of blue. It’s strange! :D
If I saw this on someone else, I would think “that looks amazing” but on myself, it just wouldn’t feel right somehow because I have this personal sense of discordance that no amount of looking in the mirror would overcome.
This underlines for me the importance of really analyzing a purchase such as this scarf as much as possible. I’m not sure I would have been critical enough to deeply consider the “strange blue” issue had I not seen Janice build out this wardrobe. I mean, I have a lot of different blues, surely something would have worked, right? But no, not for me to feel right about.
Hi Janice and Everyone! Thank you Janice for a unique color pallette. I concur with those who say that is a fickle blue to find and match. I think a denim/chambray and/or periwinkle might work better in my closet. Breaking down the 21 pc wardrobe into 12 core pieces +( 3 accent colors x 3 wardrobe pieces) = complete sense.
On the topic of the 21 piece wardrobe, I have been applying ‘Painterly Architectonic’ with tweaks. I brought in full on fuschia to add to my ‘pinks’, and tossed in some peach/apricot to add to the rusty red color. I might not wear all these together (!) but they go well with black, white and grey.
Love, love, love these colors and wardrobe pieces!! Thanks, as always, for your fantastic inspiration! I look forward to your posts every day!! Happy New Year, Janice!
I really like this whole wardrobe. The link for the blue sweater goes to a blouse.
The link is fixed – Thanks SO MUCH for letting me know!
hugs,
Janice
Several people have mentioned 21 as a magic number for a month of clothes. So this morning, I counted all the EVERYDAY jumpers/cardigans, tops and bottoms that I have worn more than once in.the last couple of months. I counted about 46 items which isn’t far off. However, I didn’t count the special dress and complete luxurious outfits that I wore for Christmas and New Year.
The surprising thing was that I only wore six pairs of trousers – dark wash jeans, grey jeans, damson cords, purple cords, navy cords and wine velvet trousers. The number of tops and jumpers was more or less equal as I always wear a top and jumper/chunky cardigan together at this time of year.
Consequently, I wore just four pairs of every day ankle boots – navy, purple, black and burgundy. I think I wore my black velvet ankle boots once and and black patent shoes on New Years Eve.
Likewise, I selected seasonal jewellery and wore pieces that I hadn’t worn for a long time.
This is the first time that I have limited my wardrobe to a seasonal colour scheme. There are clothes I didn’t wear, mostly dresses and skirts, because we weren’t socialising and are now in a strict lockdown again. I loved wearing deeper colours – burgundy, berry, wine, purple, dark fuschia, dark teal and a bit of navy and mid-blues in recent days. My neutrals were mid-grey, silver and ivory with a touch of navy. Brighter red was a tricky one and made me look sallow. So I may put my lighter reds (not berry colours) into next season.
I’m looking forward to adding in additional items for the next couple of months. The berry colours will recede replaced with redder burgundy, navy, teal. Grey and ivory plus lighter blues, purples and pinks. Light teal and mint will also appear.
So after I saw this I got curious. In December I count 16 tops and 2nd layers that were worn, and I’m sure I only varied out MAYBE three different pair of pants (because I have doubles of some of them if they don’t get washed in time to wear again) What an eye opener THAT is! This last week I repeated three of those same garments. My happy yellow sweater was worn every single week.
Sheila,
I also have a limited range of colors for bottoms , but I also have duplicates of those bottoms for laundry purposes , so 2 each of brown, tan, olive green, and navy and denim , so 10 bottoms, but 5 colors. For each bottom I like to have a top in the following categories —-off white, a neutral that matches the bottom , two accent colors ( one warm, one cool) and a print or two. These same top garments are often interchangeable with the different colored bottoms. I like to have a similar system for the toppers, with the two colored toppers matching the two tops of the same color, to function as twin sets, though honestly, I seldom wear them as twinsets . So that’s roughly 30 -32 total garments, a happy number for me , as I crave variety ! Sometimes I’ll decide to include a third accent color in the tops and toppers, adding 2 more pieces to the wardrobe . A minimalist I shall never be, but I have gotten a handle on the excesses that I used to have . That being said, what I have just described is my stay-at-home and errands wardrobe. My dressier wardrobe for church, travel , and special occasions is a smaller separate grouping in another closet or in bins right now .
When choosing an accent colored top , I always make sure that one of them is plain so that I can wear it with my boatload of scarves that I have, but then, like Beth T, I prefer to include patterned tops or toppers that include both a neutral and an accent color two .
As usual, I’m an outlier. Here are my totals for December:
Bottoms/dresses = 21
Tops = 24
Toppers = 23
Necklaces = 12
Scarves = 28
Boots/shoes = 18
I could get by with fewer, of course, but my laundry process requires an absolute minimum of 14 tops…and even that would be too few for my comfort. I don’t do a “laundry day” for clothing. I have two laundry bins (dark, light) that I throw clothes into at the end of the day, and when one of them is full, I wash the clothes and hang everything up to dry (which takes a couple days). I don’t dry clothing in the dryer.
I’ve worked out that if I make a point of washing a load as soon as it is what I consider the absolute minimum of “a full load”, I can wear a top in week 1 and again in week 3 but not in week 2. Bottoms and toppers can be worn multiple times but tops only once before hitting the laundry bin. Because my laundry is done on a somewhat unpredictable 2-week or so cycle, I need more garments in play. I mean, not nearly as many as I actually have! But to limit to 21 for a month, I would need absolute minimum 14 tops, leaving me only 7 for bottoms and toppers (which hit the laundry unpredictably). But with 7 bottoms AND 7 toppers, and a couple extra tops bringing that count to 16, that’s still only a 30 garment monthly wardrobe!
Shrebee made an interesting comment about choosing seasonal fabrics.
I have done that as well, for the first time and it really helped to create a seasonal feel to my wardrobe. I also considered patterns textures, embellishments, necklines, and sleeve length.
So for me velvet, satin, faux fur and sparkle has featured in my wardrobe. I realised that I prefer patterns to plain but plain colours must have texture (even just simple ribbing) or decorative embellishments.
Everything has had long sleeves apart from plain short-sleeved tees which doubled up as an first base layer. Most of the time I have worn polo necks.
Scarves have been for warmth around my neck and face when I went outside. Some days, I have worn a faux fur stole on top of my coat with a thick hat and fleece lined gloves.
Thank you Hallie for sharing your story – you are inspirational. Good luck finding your style. Go with your instincts and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – what they don’t like is their preference.
I LOVE your flashback post … that palette speaks directly to me! One of my favorites. I also appreciate your combinations with black today – I have so many underused black pieces that are actually pretty great (hangover from career requirements); you’ve inspired me to give them new life.
Thank you, Janice, for giving us a constant that we need right now: a useful and inspiring escape from the broad spectrum of crazy in our world today. It must be wonderful to know that you do that for us!
P.S. Hallie – great story! Enjoy hearing when others find joy in their wardrobes!
Well said! I second the Big Thanks to Janice for having such a positive, calm, pretty place to pop into, as I do frequently now. I knew not how to voice it. It can’t be easy to do this work these days, but I for one, really appreciate it. Also all the ladies posting comments that are imaginative and thoughtful. Putting my mind on colors and fabrics and Clothes is very helpful.
Also – was so drawn to this scarf. Shopped my scarf drawer and found not one but TWO I already own with similar colors! A deeper red is used, and more teal than the mid-blues…. bought a couple of years ago to tie some outfits together, one has a splash of yellow :) I’m glad I looked instead of leaped!
I had to remind myself of the ‘Painterly Architectonic’ painting mentioned by Linda P. So I looked on the internet and then was side tracked into reading about the painting and the artist.
Apparently, the painting is one in a series of paintings given the same name. Look on images and a whole host of paintings are displayed, some with so many colours used that I lost count.
Abstract art isn’t my thing really but these paintings really do show how neutral and accent colours can be used together. So perhaps Janice might consider using another of the paintings in the series….
Sally in Saint Paul,
Full disclosure here —after you stated how many toppers you have, I got to thinking that I have more than I am telling here ! Within each of my 5 main neutral colors I have a vest, a 1\4 zip pullover, and a cardigan. Plus I have at least 4 -5 accent colored vests and cardigans and two printed ones. Again, they are used across the varied bottom colors category . I am always cold, so a topper is an essential part of an ensemble for me . I rotate the accent colored ones with the seasons , so they are not all in use each month .
Shrebee, thanks for the update. I have been really struck by how methodical you are in building out from your core neutrals. It is helpful to me to hear that you have 5 neutrals. Many capsule wardrobes, such as Janice shows us, are what I consider very “tight” capsules with a more limited palette than I personally could hold myself to…so it’s very interesting to hear the different ways readers build wardrobes that accommodate a wider range of colors (be that neutrals, accents, or both) while keeping the number of pieces on the lower end. While I don’t aspire to a particularly small or minimalist wardrobe, I am interested in upping the ratio of method to madness in my approach :D and I learn a lot from this blog, from Janice and commenters!
BTW, I don’t know how many will read this on a Sunday, but I received the Echo Mountain View Scarf yesterday and am thrilled! First of all, it’s very soft. And has MANY colors. I can use it with navy, black, sage green – even pine green, beige (cool beige), gray, my blue-ish teal, and I know Janice has it paired with a peachy color, but I’m going to use it with a blush pink. It will work. There are many blues in the scarf, and I don’t have a lot of blues, so others of you may even find additional items it will work with. Just an FYI, if you are thinking about it, it’s incredibly versatile (I think)
Cheers!
Sally in St. Paul,
I used to randomly shop for “ my colors” as they are so hard to find in the marketplace, and bought them whenever they showed up, but then I found that I could not make twin sets, as the individual pieces were a bit “ off’ from one another , so I decided that from hence forth, I would only buy what matched and went together. This reduced my shopping , and as a result, along with Covid restrictions, I found that what I already have is plenty, and that I did not need to add another item just because it was one of “ my colors” !
In many of the wardrobe books that I have read over the years , the frequent advice has been to restrict the total number of colors, for ease of mix and matching , hence more bang for the purchase buck ! As I am somewhat rebellious , I mentally resisted this advice, but then I realized that what I picked out of the closet to wear were the colors that I have mentioned above as my neutrals anyway, and so with the desire of having a freer sense of space in my closet, I decided to develop the tops and toppers around those 5 bottom colors . I have often mentioned my craving of variety over the years in these posts, and so working with just one neutral in my wardrobe doesn’t work for me, though that would make outfit making so much easier ! Even when I travel , I must work with at least two of my neutrals. Prints are more limiting unless they have more than one of my neutrals both included within the print, and when they do, it is happy dance time .
You mentioned my methodical approach to my closet — that is one of the many things that I adore about Janice’s posts, when she provides her analysis of her selections within a collection — that just delights me ! It seems so—— mathematical somehow ! I love all things organizational , it’s the nerd in me !
I too enjoy reading what other people decide to include in their capsules, and I appreciate that we can all be different and that’s just fine ! And that Janice is so kind with the understanding that what she provides is then inspirational and adaptable to individual desires and circumstances !
I am so glad that you are enjoying your new scarf — I am still considering it to wear with blue jeans !
Sheila, the Mountain View scarf sounds delightful. Hope you have fun wearing it.
I found a scarf in my drawer that would compliment this one. It is a acanthus leaf/paisley pattern on a navy ground with a dark red-pink (magenta?) plain border. The paisley pattern is peacock/kingfisher blue with dark cream. However, the border looks wrong against dark fuschia or reds.
I’ve had it for years and wore it a lot with a navy cord Laura Ashley dress. Dress has long gone and I find full navy too much on me now. I’m loathe to part with it so I shall experiment.