September 16, 2022
I knew, when I linked to the blue velvet skirt on Wednesday, that someone would see this one:
Questions started showing up immediately in my mail box – “do you THINK that I could wear this skirt enough to justify buying it?”
Well, yes, I do!
Let’s look at some possibilities, ranging from just a blouse in warmer weather, to bundling up in the dead of winter:
Green onyx earrings – Monica Vinader; blouse – Lands’ End; bracelet – Monica Vinader; skirt – Boden; tote – Longchamp; ballet flats – Vaneli
Dahlia cashmere sweater – J.Crew; paisley earrings – Samuel B.; scarf – Heating & Plumbing London; boots – Miz Mooz; skirt – Boden
Navy cashmere turtleneck – Lands’ End; earrings – Toolally; peacoat – L.L.Bean; skirt – Boden; scarf – You by Tokarska; boots – Michael Michael Kors
Dahlia coat – J.Crew; frog brooch – Fable England; blouse – Boden; skirt – Boden; ballet flats – SoftWalk
Butter yellow tee shirt – L.L.Bean; malachite earrings – Little Sky Stone; malachite pendant – Crystal Planets; skirt – Boden; hunter green cardigan – Boden; flats – Vionic
Orange cashmere sweater – Lingua Franca (sold out!); pink scarf – Autograph; earrings – Boden; orange bag – Alkeme Atelier; pink flats – J.Crew; skirt – Boden
If you assemble everything together that I’ve shown here, it’s a pretty neat, bright wardrobe!
But no matter how much you love that skirt, you probably can’t wear it every day! So I might add just a few things:
Navy sweater blazer – J.Crew; v-neck sweater – Boden; cargo pants – J.Crew; rinsed wash jeans – L.L.Bean
For many of us, this wardrobe would get us through the winter with no trouble!
If you’re obsessing about a garment that might lend itself to a beautiful wardrobe, let me know!
love,
Janice
p.s. 9 years ago, I pondered a book tour wardrobe in black and bright lime green! You would definitely catch the eye…
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The pink and green with skirt is quite lovely! I would wear it easily.
This is just wonderful!! All of it. (While just looking at my almost completely blue wardrobe, with just little sprinkles in other colors….)
Wow, this is bold! I love velvet in winter. It is tactile and warm.
I have a floral skirt in a warm material. It is a multi-coloured Liberty print which I bought, many years ago, as a skirt length. It had a ready made elasticated waist. All you needed to do was to sew up the side seam and hem it up. I still wear it, over 30 years later. The colours are shades of pink, teal and blue. It is printed on a black background, if you look at the reverse, but navy is the best neutral. I love wearing it with colour combinations – pink and teal, blue and pink.
It is tricky, when you have a multi-coloured garment, to choose which colours will look best with it. You’ve shown how to embrace the colours and not be afraid to mix more than one colour in an outfit. You can have a lot of fun with the clothes, jewellery and accessories. Making a patterned garment the centre of a colourful wardrobe is really cheering on dreary colder days.
I had to look up what a Liberty print is but thank you! I love this print- I still think about a swimsuit I had in my teens with this print – and I did not know it’s (or “its”) name or history. Thanks!
Liberty prints include florals, peacocks, art nouveau themes. The iconic Liberty shop on Regent Street in London is worth visiting. It was built using timbers from three historic ships.
This is a public service announcement from your friendly neighbourhood pedant. To figure out which version of its/it’s you need, think of substituting other pronouns: he’s/she’s/it’s, but his/hers/its.
Beth T! I bought two of those skirt lengths when I was in London! I think it was in 1981. I made both of them up, and I wore them quite often. One was a gray and white plaid, and the other was a burgundy paisley print. I wish I still had them.
Beth T, I had never heard of these Liberty print skirt lengths that can be easily sewn up into a skirt – very interesting!
If it doesn’t break copyright, I’d be interested to know what your original look-back 2013 post was for A Femme d’un Certain Age.
Here are all the posts from that blog in September 2013: http://tishjett.com/2013/09
I always default to “crisp white shirt” with bright patterns on my legs like this. Of course, I don’t actually have the legs or confidence for such a bold print on my bottom, but I enjoy fantasizing! I keep waiting for a white shirt but am glad to see other options, thank you Janice!
Love, love, love this whole wardrobe! So happy to see NO BLACK. This is a happy, joyful person who I would be-friend in a minute!
What a lovely selection of colourful clothes and accessories to go with the beautiful skirt. It would make me very happy to open my wardrobe and see all the colours together.
Paisley and happy colours packaged in a pencil skirt….yes please!! This is all so fun and happy. Those little green boots make me smile.
I’ve kept my “bottoms” solid-toned and allow some pattern and texture in my tops. This wardrobe shows it can work just as well in reverse. Several of the solid tops would be marvellous in warmer weather with patterned summer bottoms.
I love how you took it to the next level by adding some dark neutral basic pieces so that it would all work together as a wardrobe. Absolutely brilliant!
The third outfit is my favorite!
What fun colors & great combinations!!! Add another 4 garments (Olive cords, another top in each of : pink, orange, yellow) and you have a “Janice-classic” 4×4 wardrobe! Really speaks to my color-loving soul. Amazing work as always Janice!
Love seeing the different top/topper combinations that show the flexibility of starting an outfit with a pencil skirt. It would be nice to see more variety in the shoe options too, like pumps, kitten heel slides, knee high boots, etc. The outfit vignettes serve as wonderful inspiration for pulling together outfits from my own closet but I never wear ballet flats.
Because I would never – ever – wear a pencil skirt, I took a look, and this same pattern comes in a pair of pants…..
Go for it Sheila!
Yeah, I know, I love the floral velvet pants i bought a couple of years ago – could use several of the same tops with these! Something to be said for having a “clown closet” as my husband calls it. (Lots of colors). 😂
I just tried to find the pants but no luck. Canyou help? I love the skirt but probably would get more wear out of the pants.
https://www.bodenusa.com/en-us/classic-tapered-trousers-trekking-green-paisley-charm/sty-r0169-grn
Ooo thanks… I do love the jacket!
I ADORE this whole thing! Lovely, lively colors – exactly what I’m drawn to!! So much fashion these days is SO BORING. I love this!
This wardrobe and Wednesday’s wardrobe are definitely in my wheelhouse. These are beautiful colors that are so cheerful for fall and winter. I love them both!
Wow. That is really bright. Nothing wrong with that, but I have learned that my shape does not look good in a bright printed bottom. I would have to pick a soft muted barely there print to get away with wearing anything print on the bottom. However, I like the idea of starting with a print item to create a wardrobe. Very nice.
I love boldly printed skirts and have several of them in my wardrobe. I find them particularly great in winter, oddly enough, because I wear a lot of solid sweaters in cold weather. The pink + orange combo was particularly excellent as an example of wearing two bright accent colors together. My style is more maximal so I would also be looking for print mix opportunities…a print scarf is a very easy way to do that in cold weather. The styling with the fair isle sweater on the Boden site was terrific (I don’t even like fair isle that much but it’s growing on me).
In Janice’s capsule, the skirt is a brilliant and gorgeous print that binds the wardrobe together. But for deciding whether to add the skirt to one’s own wardrobe…for me it’s a tricky decision balancing the emotion and practicality. What helps me with this decision is thinking not just “Would I (theoretically) wear this skirt?” because the answer to that is so often “Well yes, of course, I love it and it’s my style and I can thinking of a dozen ways to wear it!”…which doesn’t capture the reality that the number of days in a year is limited to 365/366 so we have to consider opportunity to wear as well as willingness/desire to wear.
I might start with: How often would I be willing to wear this bold and distinctive skirt? Once a week? Once every two weeks? Once a month? Etc. Then calculate how many times that is in the year (based on what months of the year you would wear the skirt). Then multiply by how many years to get a ballpark number of wears. What’s the estimate of your best-case cost per wear? (I say “best-case” because I think we tend to overestimate how often we’ll wear something and there are a lot of ways that a skirt you think you’d wear for 5 years doesn’t make it that long, including lifestyle changes, weight changes, lack of durability.) Is that reasonable to you? If not, then it’s probably a no.
But if it passes the first test, then: if I’m wearing this skirt every two weeks (or whatever), what items will I *not* be wearing the X times I wear the skirt this year? Because your new garment, however beloved and however many ways you can imagine wearing it, is in direct competition with the clothes you already own (and are hopefully wanting to put through their paces and rack up a good number of wears with). But also: will this skirt make me wear some of my other items more? For example, if you had a bright pink sweater and a dark green blouse and a yellow top that you are prioritizing to wear this winter, the skirt could increase your wears of those items. It’s a balancing act.
For me personally, I have a pretty full closet and am committed to 30+ wears and a cost per wear of $1 or less, so it’s hard for something like this $180 skirt to make the cut. Others may accept a much higher cost per wear in general or for special statement pieces they love.
I just wanted to add a bit of focus on the different between “would wear” and “will wear” because it’s so easy to fall in love with a gorgeous print and all the possibilities while forgetting the rest of one’s closet! Ask me how I know. ;)
Good analysis. The boldness and wonderful color of the skirt blow me away. My hat is off to those who can wear this.
This was so helpful, thank you! I think about cost per wear and if I already have items to wear with the new garment, but I never thought about what I wouldn’t wear if I had the new item. That could be very valuable to think about!
Love this look and I have a velvet pencil skirt with a paisley print!!!! It does not have quite as many colors but enough for me to play around with. I may have to get the paisley earrings. On another note, Janice what do you do on your challenge if you have a spilling accident? Just this morning coffee went all down the front of my white blouse and shorts! I had been dressed and feeling quite fashionable for all of one hour. Ha
I’d seen Boden also has/had this velvet paisley in a blazer & pants. These are colors I wear & I love paisley & I was tempted to buy the blazer because I had a velvet print blazer I loved, but I realized I wouldn’t wear it much because my lifestyle is so casual. I do have a scarf in a similar paisley & I wear it a lot!
I notice you didn’t include the combination shown on the boden website! LOL. I actually like the sweater. And I like the skirt. Wouldn’t wear them together, but I appreciate Boden pushing use to consider it.
Love these colours and…I own the orange cashmere sweater!! Only thing is I loath green:( but no worries I would remove all things green from the wardrobe as there are plenty of other colours I like featured in the skirt pattern. Sigh…nothing makes one’s beam look more broad than a pencil skirt with a narrow hem and the pattern wouldn’t help with the visuals. Neither would the unflattering midi length…I was just looking at my much thinner self in such a skirt style 47 years ago, the hips were slim and looked good but the length…Nope, I’ll stick to the pants! The short boots look better with trousers anyway..just.not.in.green;)
Love the navy and orange mix the best! That skirt truly is fabulous, isn’t it?
So cheerful. I’m not a trouser/long pants gal and live in stretch pencil skirts. Love it !
I can’t wear such bold colors now that my hair is graying. Sadly, it overpowers me.
However, in the early 90s, I once had a similarity bright paisley jacket and matching skirt that was truly fabulous and versatile. I enjoyed wearing it for nearly two decades. Don’t know if any of you might be familiar to with the Doncaster private label .