January 18, 2023
She had always liked to wear ivory, bone, stone – those light, neutral colors.
And denim. ALWAYS denim…
So when she saw this:
Composition by Ernest Mancoba
She saw her color palette for the rest of the winter, right in front of her!
Although her favorite colors are lighter and brighter, she will include her black pants, at a minimum! Sometimes, you need dark pants…
To start, she pulls her 3 favorite outfits from her closet:
She realizes early on that she’s not going to have a “Whatever’s Clean” wardrobe – some of her clothes just aren’t going to go together. That’s fine, so long as the majority of her garments play nicely together and give her options…
An excellent pair of black pants are so useful…
She decides that she’s going to try a Project 333 wardrobe for the rest of the winter – 33 items to wear for 3 months! In this case, she will wear this wardrobe until mid-April, or until truly warm weather arrives.
She wants to split her 33 items between clothes and accessories, so she’s going to plan for 16 garments – A 4 by 4 Wardrobe!
So she finds herself here:
She doesn’t have anything yet in her wardrobe in her flame accent, nor in teal. And she’s got room in her wardrobe for more denim!
These are her choices:
Maybe another ivory sweater? And a couple more tee shirts?
She ponders the merits of a black tee shirt, but finally decides that if she’s going to include her black pants, she may as well include a black tee. That solid column thing can be so helpful…
Dark peacock tee – Lands’ End; paperwhite cotton sweater – L.L.Bean; black tee – Lands’ End; denim skirt – COS
Here’s how her 4 by 4 Wardrobe template finishes:
Hmmm… Project 333 typically includes 33 items, and she has 16 garments. That means that she has “room” in her plan for 17 accessories, or for 16 accessories and one outrageous bonus items!
Will she have enough outfits?
Friday, we’re going to have to help this heroine find her accessories!
And I’ve GOT to keep my eyes open for something amazing, to be her 33rd piece. Oh my…
love,
Janice
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ooooh I love these colors together. I’ve been looking at light blue and orange-red for a summer capsule. With navy and white (or stone?) as the neutrals. Can’t wait to see the accessories and that last piece on Friday.
Love love love!!! This is just what I’ve been looking for!!
I am trying to save to Pinterest but the “images are broken”. I’ll try again later!
Thanks!
Susan
Susan, my pinterest does that if I haven’t logged in first to pinterest before I try to save an image. Try logging in and then saving.
Janice,
This is quite practical and fun at the same time. While the colours are not “ME” I would like to adopt this idea to my wardrobe to get through till spring! What a fantastic idea!
I recently read about fast fashion and slow fashion! Thank you
Regina
Great January inspiration for some clearing out and looking ahead. Thank you!
I love this! It really helps for color magpies like me – you have ONE item in that flame orange, and only two items in black (those pants are critical), and it opens up so many options!! For me personally, i would swap the denim skirt for grey trousers, then I would have black, grey, white/light neutral, and jeans for bottoms – even with the same tops, that just feels like more variety to me :) I’m sure the accessories will do a great job of tying things together.
It reminds me a little of a packing post you did one time with black pants and jeans, and then 3 or 4 different accent color tops.
Thanks as always for all the effort you put into these. You make my M/W/F so happy :)
Ezzy, I have a very similar reaction to yours (fellow color magpie)! I think the denim skirt, jeans, and dress is kind of a lot, and I say that as a person who likes denim (though typically only one piece at at time). I would experiment with switching out the skirt and/or dress for a bottom/dress in grey and/or brown to add even more variety. Then I would probably pick brown or cognac for my leather pieces as it works with denim, ivory/stone, grey, brown, and black (and navy…oh how it works with navy).
In general, I am sometimes surprised by how capsules are dominated by 1-2 neutrals, given that one of the advantages of neutrals is how easily they can be mixed and matched with each other and with accent colors.
Maybe in a limited capsule, there is a trade-off between having your columns/twin sets/”suits” and having a more varied set of neutral colors. I think it’s worth each of us to consider how we want to prioritize those two approaches. Personally, I find that I feel very satisfied when I can fill out this kind of capsule matrix with my columns/twin sets/”suits”…but that in day to day outfit creation, I am more likely to wear a mix of colors rather than a matching pair, although I certainly do both.
Denim dresses and skirts are things I used to wear but are now a little too “sister wives” for me, after seeing pictures of myself wearing them. I stick to jeans as the only denim in my outfit. That said, it would be easy enough to replace the skirt and dress with navy twill.
This would work well for the Spring and Summer months with denim skorts instead of a denim skirt. And tees instead of sweaters. 💫💖✨
I am using a winter capsule with 22 pieces but I have two of them (so 44 pieces). One for work, church and nights out and one for at home days (I work part time as a teacher). It has been really fun to play with a limited color palette and collection of clothes that are actually fairly interchangeable (between the 2 capsules). I am enjoying it. I just have my other clothes in a couple of bins in the bottom of my closet.
I am doing something quite similar, but my divisions are black and navy. Two capsules, and most of the pieces are interchangeable. I have 36 pieces, not including footwear or accessories.
I still cannot figure out how to work black and navy together, lol. So I’ve given up on black. Sometimes I miss it, but not that much!
Sandi, that is sort of the difference in mine too… change of neutrals. My work capsule is navy/brown and my casual one is navy/grey. Both have the same teal/turquoise and berry/pink accent colors.
Love selecting your wardrobe colors from a favorite piece of art. Waiting with bated breath for the Friday accessories and hope you find that amazing 33rd piece soon.
LL Bean should hire Janice to work on their catalog and website – putting outfits together. As a regular LL Bean shopper I notice the pieces look so much better when Janice makes an outfit with them :)
There’s a lot of pretty clothes out there and we all want to look and feel good. That’s why I think this blog is really special.
Have a great day!
The Fair Isle Cardigan will be a workhorse in this capsule. It will go with so much, apart from the teal. I could even imagine it slung round the shoulders of the denim dress.
However having two different shades of teal (blue teal and green teal) would annoy me, as it does in my own wardrobe. I’ve had to make sure that have other matching or coordinating teal items in the correct shades.
Hi Beth, as much as I like teal, I finally gave up for that reason. I have issues with shades and trying to figure it out with the blue teal and green teal was just annoying. I’m about there with navy. Some of it I can’t tell the difference from black, and there are so many different shades. I don’t need to be matchy matchy, but at least a cool navy with a cool navy and not a cool navy and a warm navy like I managed to do yesterday! No wonder my wardrobe is a mess.
I separated blue teal and green teal in my wardrobe. The blue teal looks good with ivory, grey, warm pink, coral/salmon pink and slate blues. Green teal looks great with light teal, duck egg green, purple/plum, burgundy grey, brown.
Ooh this is very similar to my wardrobe, though I always rely on navy instead of black for that darker option :)
This is perfect! Love the red/orange sweater, also the golden yellow sweaters! these are my colors with cool blues, white and touches of black…almost exactly what you have presented today!
thanks!
Love this. Very good look at what a project 333 can be. The neutral core is denim blue, black and white. 5 colour items, and a print cardigan that pulls it all together. From experience that mix is really well balanced.
I do project 333 every season and I range between 16 to 18 clothing items. Right now it’s black, grey and white with accents of cranberry, denim blue, rose pink, periwinkle, moss green and greyed aqua. The colours keep it interesting and my prints are from my scarves.
I’m looking forward to seeing what the accessories are.
Another great wardrobe! Wow, the Fair Isle cardigan is so versatile. I love the happy bright colors. I agree with Sally, Ezzy, and RBI’s regarding the amount of denim. I would switch out the denim skirt (they always feel bunchy around the waist and my stomach sticks out) for a print a-line skirt (knee or slightly above) to wear with tights and boots or loafers. I wish I could distill my wardrobe to a manageable size. I guess I identify as a magpie as well, dazzled and distracted by bright, colorful, and pretty clothing, and accessories! Looking forward to Friday’s post.