May 30, 2022
This is the painting that inspired our heroine:
And this is the wardrobe that she assembled for the upcoming summer months; she lives in a nice mild climate…
Grey “commando” sweater – L.L.Bean; blue cardigan – Nordstrom; Bay leaf cardigan – L.L.Bean; grey quilted cardigan – L.L.Bean; green and blue camp shirts – Caslon; grey long-sleeved tee – Lands’ End; striped linen top – Caslon; light blue shirt – J.Crew; white tunic shirt – Treasure & Bond; bay leaf dotted top – L.L.Bean; white embroidered tee – Orvis; dotted shirt – Boden; tie-dye sweatshirt – Goodthreads; striped linen shirt – Komodo; grey knit pants – L.L.Bean; jeans – ASOS; light grey chinos – J.Crew; white cropped chinos – Lands’ End; storm grey chinos – Orvis
Of course she needs accessories! Most women will at least want some shoes, and I suspect that most of us also like a couple of pieces of jewelry, a bag, and possibly a scarf or two…
But there are no rules – if you really AREN’T a jewelry person, or a scarf person, don’t force yourself to be someone you’re not. There’s nothing at all elegant or beautiful about being untrue to yourself!
For the sake of fun, maybe our heroine is going to use this template as a guideline for her summer accessories:
Where does one start? Our heroine decides that she will look at all of the outfits that she assembled earlier, and accessorize each of them, until she feels like she has everything she needs.
Her first outfit is quite neutral, but beautiful earrings and a really interesting bag will make it more interesting…
Cardigan – L.L.Bean; white top – Orvis; grey pants – Orvis; earrings – A Blonde and Her Bag; fabric wrist bag – Salient Label; loafers – Driver Club USA
Her 2nd outfit is very summery, so she treat herself to the perfect sandals, as well as some lovely jewelry:
Shirt – Caslon; cropped pants – Lands’ End; earrings – Charlotte’s Web Jewellery; bracelet – Anchor & Crew; sandals – Sam Edelman
Her 3rd outfit is going to be perfect for hiking, so she gets some appropriate shoes, and a watch. And why not some pretty earrings with a nature theme?
Cardigan – L.L.Bean; tee shirt – Lands’ End; chinos – J.Crew; earrings – Edil Fantas; watch – Fossil; sneakers – APL
Another outfit that’s ideal for being outdoors – maybe a pair of truly waterproof boots, and a cozy scarf, are sensible:
Sweater – L.L.Bean; shirt – J.Crew; jeans – ASOS; earrings – Charlotte’s Web Jewellery; scarf – Arte Cashmere; waterproof boots – Propet
Her next outfit can span a day that goes from cool, to warm, and then back to cool! Another scarf could be very useful…
Cardigan – L.L.Bean; campshirt – Caslon; pants – L.L.Bean; earrings – Overstock; scarf – Treasure & Bond; loafers – Driver Club USA
When she wears her “cloudy sky” sweatshirt, it might be fun to wear sun-inspired jewelry! And a sky-blue wristlet will be a fun way to carry the necessities…
Sweatshirt – Goodthreads; chinos – Orvis; earrings – Allsaints; sun pendant – Ross-Simons; blue wristlet – La Regale
Her next outfit is for the warmest days that she encounters – espadrilles are perfect! And everybody might use a big tote from time to time:
Striped top – Caslon; white cropped pants – Lands’ End; tote – Topshop; bracelet – Fierce Lynx Designs; espadrilles – Soludos
Another outfit that will be wearable through a day of changing temperatures, and she now has all of the accessories that she needs!
Cardigan – Nordstrom; shirt – Boden; pants – J.Crew; earrings – Charlotte’s Web Jewellery; blue wristlet – La Regale; espadrilles – Soludos
Just because she’s wearing jeans doesn’t mean that her accessories can’t be lovely…
Cardigan – L.L.Bean; campshirt – Caslon; jeans – ASOS; earrings – Chan Luu; scarf – Bajra; ballet flats – SoftWalk
Her last outfit! Why not take advantage of the lovely green, and add some leafy details?
Green top – L.L.Bean; pants – L.L.Bean; leaf stud earrings – Madewell; necklace – Chan Luu; ballet flats – SoftWalk
Her adherence to the details of the template was… shaky. But she has lots of lovely accessories now, and that’s the real point of this exercise:
I think that her wardrobe looks a ton more interesting and complete with accessories – what do you think?
I think the ratio of at least 1 accessory : 1 garment is a pretty good one, although I suspect that my wardrobe probably has TONS MORE accessories than clothes…
What about you?
love,
Janice
p.s. Three years ago, our heroine was headed somewhere for some sun, with a wardrobe of khaki and pink…
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It’s a nice soft wardrobe and the accessories are as well. I’m only surprised that you used silver and gold. I think most people either like one or the other. I for one like mixed pieces myself. My favorite!! But I’m not much of a silver person. I do own a a turquoise & silver pieces well as a few silver necklaces & earrings I wear alone. I felt this was a silver accessories wardrobe.
I quite happily mix silver and gold. I find I focus more on the color of the stone than the metal. Love the way you presented the outfits to go with various activities and weather. Thank you!
This is really a season spanning wardrobe, great for all but the extremes. Minimalist too, which I like. All the accessories work into the soft, casual vibe, I thought. Natural and relaxed.
This is such an excellent blend of practical and beautiful! My style has tended to err on the side of practical + glamor in isolated outfits, so this is a terrific master class for me! Thank you for sharing your talents, Janice.
After comparing the look back wardrobe with the one we are looking at today, the pink and khaki feels much sunnier. The grey and company wardrobe reflects, to me, the current weather, which is decidedly unsummery. I think combining the two would allow for a wider range of summer weather (and be a bit more reflective of my colour palette).
First, I love the choices made for all the accessories, especially the blue sandals, the leaf earrings and the gray tote. And I really like your approach of looking at each individual outfit to determine the activity and then how to best accessorize. Makes perfect sense and certainly makes it easier to plan.
I find this accessories template to be a great tool for honing in on what to include for a particular capsule wardrobe and am excited to try it out. To make it work for my own styling needs, I added column heads at the top indicating colors to include (green, blue, gray) as well as a category head for metal since I wear both silver and gold jewelry. Then I added another row for earrings and titled the first row “stud earrings” and the second row “drop earrings.” I’m also leaning towards separating bags from shoes as I can see myself benefitting from having 4 different styles of bags, each in a different color (wristlet, crossbody, handbag, tote). And since footwear can cross over seasons, I don’t think it would be unreasonable to have two lines for shoes. Maybe sandals and flats in the first line and other shoes and boots in a second line. So that’s a total of 20 clothes items and 32 accessories. It’s a work in progress, but it seems to work for me, at least in my mind! I’m traveling soon and will be able to put it to the test by pulling my travel capsule only from the items in each of the two templates I created for summer clothes and summer accessories.
I rarely wear earrings, so my jewellery section would be populated by strings of beads, pendants and bracelets. I wear mostly silver but wear sometimes wear gold with red and green.
I love that you included both silver and gold in jewelry as I do too! Sometimes I just feel one way more than the other when I put something on. Or I want to wear a special necklace or ring that only goes with one or the other. I wonder if there’s a typo on your filled in jewelry spreadsheet where it says broochwelryes? Either that or I’m not familiar with the term, which is entirely possible! :) Thanks for everything and I hope you have a lovely memorial day.
It was a typo, but I left it, because what ended up in that category was a weird combination of jewelry – no brooches though!
Good eye!
hugs,
Janice
It felt appropriate that the earrings overflowed into other cells of the grid in this summer wardrobe as earrings are a nice accessory even in the heat. The pewter flats were my favorite addition!
I love these soft colours for spring/summer! Your accessories wardrobes have helped me to take the time to plan accessories better. Thank you for your work creating such lovely combinations for us to enjoy!
I have a lot of accessories but I really wear so few of them — the necklaces or brooches aren’t quite right, missing an earring or back, hard to chain a bracelet by myself and oy I’d love watches but it seems like such an expensive gift for myself. Now that I am pretty satisfied with my wardrobe I should probably think about purging the accessories that don’t bring me joy and invest in some classic accessories that will get more wear.
I like the idea of sun accessible for the cloudy shirt– I looked up “cloud” accessories and they look quite juvenile. The sun accessories you chose look much more sophisticated
I love everything about this wardrobe and the accessories.
I really like the 1:1 accessories to clothing items idea.
That’s the one thing that cramps my style when I do my seasonal project 333 wardrobe capsules. I usually have 18-22 items of clothing- which I always find more than sufficient but 11-13 accessories and outerwear never are enough. Weather here is variable, I love scarves and earrings. In fact it’s BECAUSE of my accessories that I am comfortable in a smaller capsule.
Scarves, earrings and purses are often my focal points and I need variety.
Of course I go ahead and use what I have and love. It’s not about the numbers- those are just a useful learning tool to figure out what works for me as an individual.
Because I did work within the 33 item limit over 2 years I’ve been able to get rid of a lot of stuff I used to love, or I ought to love and I now only have stuff I really love in the here and now, that fits, that I actually wear. My coat closet is small but not stuffed and neither of us have a lot. We use everything we have.
I trimmed my accessories likewise. Now I figure on roughly 18-22 even up to 24 items of clothing and I think my accessories might work out as a 1:1 in actual use. Interesting thought Janice and thank you.
I read this about 4 times and am still mulling over it. I want to be an accessories person, but can’t seem to do it every day. On a daily basis, I have the same 14k gold stud earrings and switch my purse out seasonally. Shoes are difficult as they wear so fast. I forget to add necklaces and scarves most days. Rings and bracelets catch in drawers and cabinets. My watches quit keeping time after I’ve worn them a while. I tend to use my cardigans and lip colour as accesories most of the time. Don’t ask how many red lippies a woman needs to own…I think my last count was nearly 18 different tubes…and I wear all of them. Pink, rose, mauve, plum, etc…maybe a few that get worn, but usually gather dust. Is there hope for me to be as put together as Janice’s heroines when it comes to accessories? Can I really count my cardis and lippy as accessories? Anyway…Janice, please keep the accesories coming. I need the help, ideas, examples… Thank you.
Love your confession. See mine above for why I don’t tend towards accessories. I think we all just have our style and preferences, totally ok!
The one thing I would say is you can take your non-working watches to most jewelers and they can replace the battery and clean out the gears to get the watches working again. Usually less than $20 or $25 and worth it to me.
You do you, as the kids say!
Hi Kari: I like your unique idea of ‘lip’ accessories in different colors, actually. If you feel that accentuates your outfits, one of your columns in the chart could be that.