March 15, 2023
Beware the Ides of March…
Flowers by Sir Cedric Morris
Or maybe not! Maybe the Ides of March bring flowers to you…
This palette is particularly good for someone who wants variety in their wardrobe – it would be possible to find maybe 10 accent colors in this painting!
Our heroine starts with beige; you can do a lot and go a long way with a simple beige outfit!
Flower earrings – Madewell; Oatmeal heather cardigan – L.L.Bean; stone ribbed t-shirt – Boden; “ledge” pants – L.L.Bean; loafers – Koio
Next, she indulges in olive green…
Ruffled 100% cotton shirt – Alex Mill; peridot earrings – Gemondo; 100% cotton cardigan – Alex Mill; recycled denim pants – Alex Mill; sneakers – Reiker
Before she forgets, she tosses in her favorite blue spring sweater, and a pair of jeans in a very light beige…
She wants shorts! So it makes sense to stock up on olive – some accessories will be useful…
Olive heather tee – L.L.Bean; bracelet – Share Oke; tote bag – Mersi; olive shorts – L.L.Bean; sandals – SoftWalk
Now let’s get to those accent colors! A beautiful cotton sweater in a delicious shade of purple? Don’t mind if I do…
A few tee shirts, and a cozy cardigan for those spring days that don’t quite get as warm as promised:
Orange tee – J.Crew; cashmere cardigan – L.L.Bean; pointelle tee – Alex Mill; classic yellow tee – J.Crew
When assembled in her closet, nothing could be more cheerful:
And she has a TON of options…
Many of us are concerned that a smaller wardrobe would be boring; I suspect that one could easily manage with 8 neutral garments and EIGHT ACCENT PIECES.
That’s not boring at all!
love,
Janice
Like this wardrobe? Save it to Pinterest!
Oh wow, this might be my favourite ever. The purple, orange and periwinkle blue all in one wardrobe! Olive green is my best neutral, I’d love to do beige as a second one, (and have a few nice core pieces) but it’s not ideal while home educating 3 very artistically inclined young children…. we don’t want to take that “blank canvas” idea too far!
I love this! What a beautiful painting. And I love the idea of all the accent colors. Thank you!
What an interesting artist! And a great little wardrobe. Cheery.
This is beautiful. It makes me long for spring, but we are a far way from that here in Canada….sigh. I’m still wearing fleece and long johns.
This is my idea of a capsule wardrobe! I love color, and have a very hard time narrowing my accent colors down to two or three. Eight or ten is much more like it, with the neutrals of navy, white, jeans, and black (try as I might, I cannot get away from having some black in my wardrobe). I love the maize scarf – I may have to use that as my reward when I reach my 2023 goal. Thank you again, Janice, for all the work you do for us. You are a treasure!
Olive fanatic that I am, this wardrobe grabs me. I myself would use a more muted orange/rust and a more golden yellow from the painting. Wouldn’t those green wedges look good with the green ruffled blouse for a dressier occasion? I always like a green and purple combination too. What a cheery painting!
I love lots of variety in my wardrobe so I’m happy with lots of accents. I do try and keep to the same tones. Such a painting with so many accents could give inspiration all year long.
Just getting to Wednesday’s and today’s posts. I’m never going to get to a “certain” number of articles but there are ways for me to be mindful. I do wear/own things for years and years! When I shop vintage, it’s from my closet. I pay attention to how often I wash items of clothing. A good tailor can certainly make an item more current. Meg this is for you. I have had pants cropped, made into shorts, and tapered. Cutoff denim shorts used to be jeans:) I have also found places to donate clothes that I’m not going to wear but that someone will. I’m not talking re-sale but give away. The county I live in has a great place. The clothes that are turned into rags were rags to start with! I also offer items that do not suit my gray hair and 71 year old aesthetic to my daughter and some of her friends. (I do not believe age dictates what I wear but some things I just no longer want to wear.) Love to read/see Janice’s posts and ideas. It is definitely food for thought. For those of you who haven’t read it Elizabeth Cline’s book “The Conscious Closet” is interesting.
Don’t forget that March 21st is Down syndrome awareness day. Wear your Crazy Socks! Janice has shown us a few pair over the years.
I absolutely love this collection. It is the best example of a coordinated capsule wardrobe I have ever seen. Believe me I have been looking for years. I’m not sure that these are exactly my colors, but the idea is absolutely perfect. Thank you so much.
I think this is probably the most do-able type of small wardrobe capsule: core pieces in neutrals supplemented with accent color tops. The neutral bottom + accent color top + neutral topper (optional) is probably the most commonly worn one, so it’s easy to put together outfits from a capsule like this. By concentrating the accent colors in the tops (which is next to your face and has an outsized impact on the final look), you can choose virtually any color as an accent (as long as you like it with your neutrals).
I personally like prints/bridge pieces, so this kind of capsule works better for me in the cooler seasons when wearing a scarf daily is possible. For warm weather, I’d need to sub or add at least a couple print tops!
Ditto to Sally in St. Paul ! I often think in the same terms as you !
And I just read the look back series. Fabulous reminder of what you can do with a core of neutrals.
Janice,
It’s ME ! All of these wonderful accent colors in one collection — love it !
This is so pretty!! I will keep it in mind when I start pulling out warmer weather stuff… For sure it will keep me cheery through this NAAA (not appealing at all) task!
What a beautiful painting! This kind of wardrobe, neutrals and many accent colours, is right up my alley. I would use a mid tone grey instead of beige and oh, how I wish we could move on from olive to forest or hunter green. That would make my heart sing.
Thank you, Amanda! My area doesn’t have outstanding alterations people or consignment/thrift stores, but if I did some research, I imagine I could find both within 50 miles.
Janice, I love all the accent colors in today’s wardrobe. Using 4-8 accents instead of just one or two would make it easier to keep more of my older pieces.
This is most like my current wardrobe. I have base pieces in mostly navy and gray, and then colors in tops / sweaters. I could not limit it to two neutrals and two colors as many of the Vivienne wardrobes do! I love plum, orchid, dusty blue, all shades between green and blue, and pink! My colored top pieces are sorted by color in the center of my closet, with neutrals off to the sides, and it makes me so happy to open my closet door and see the rainbow!
Yes!! I was thinking about a colourscheme like this, with all the colour accents. I can try to translate this to a deeper and warmer colourscheme. With olive, coral, terracotta, carneol, curry, peridot and maybe turquoise. A darker and warmer gold or copper. Only, I cannot see myself wearing the first basic colour. Too light for a whole outfit for me. Maybe a dark warm taupe or a warm mid grey? I don’t know if you make wardrobes on demand, but if you do, I would be véry happy if you would make something like this. And if you don’t, thank you for this one! And what a nice painting.
What a great painting for inspiration! I was able to put this group together totally
from my closet. It is a spring group for me and the colors work so well together.
I’m excited about this group. Thanks for the idea