February 26, 2024
She’s going somewhere hot! Well, hot during the day – cooler in the evenings…
Her trip is only for a long weekend, but she’s excited, and she has a plan, based on her new bracelets:
She’s NOT going to Tibet – that might be a longer trip than just a long weekend! – but she will be meditating, mostly on the world and the elements that compose it. So, a bracelet that includes blue (to represent sky and space), white (air and wind), red (fire), green (water), and yellow (earth) seems just right!
Yes, she fully understands that she might get dirty. But she won’t be doing anything grubby or overly physical; meditation retreats are nice, quiet places…
For starters, she assembles her favorite core of white clothes. These feel pure and fresh – the perfect base for a quiet and reflective few days…
Tee shirt – Lands’ End; earrings – Marie June Jewelery; tunic – Lands’ End; cardigan – Eileen Fisher; dress – Lands’ End; shorts – Lands’ End; silver bag – J.Crew; pants – Lands’ End; sandals – Naot; sneakers – Keds
And then the fun starts – four more garments, in her four accent colors, along with jewelry, scarves and sandals to keep things lively:
Yellow & green shirts – Alex Mill; malachite earrings – Lacoste; bracelets – Fierce Lynx Designs; lapis earrings – Mine Finds by Jay King; red tie belt – Isabel Marant; twilly scarf – Lost Pattern; green belt – Giani; cardigan – Alex Mill; red tee – Alex Mill; square scarf – Jessie Zhao New York; yellow sandals – Naturalizer; red sandals – Naturalizer
When she gets ready to pack, she’s utterly delighted with how fun her travel capsule wardrobe looks. She could decide that she wants to wear all white sometimes, and she might decide to wear two (or three!) of her bright accents together.
Meditation retreats aren’t big on personal style judgment…
How might we find her dressed? I thought of a few ideas…
I’m also imagining a longer trip for which this heroine might include a wardrobe cluster in navy… Want to see it?
love,
Janice
p.s. Ten years ago, I was back from New York with some observations about sweaters…
Like this wardrobe? Save it to Pinterest!
Looking good…love to see it with the navy!
What a bright and happy way to start a Monday. While I love the all white look, I never wear it. When I try, I feel that I am back in my early days of nursing. But that’s probably why I know how to keep white clean. :) Yes, please to the navy additions. As lovely as this is, I would need a darker neutral to feel complete and navy would be my preference.
On another note, I went shopping for a jacket or structured cardigan to wear with my one black dress. I wanted something to relieve all that black a bit. I had decided on a neutral in ivory or beige. In theory, I want to create a more functional and interchangeable wardrobe. The fates were against me. The stores did not have the jackets and cardigans I wanted in my size. Anyway, I ended up with to very pretty second layers. One a beautiful tweed in red, violet, and dark blue. The other a fun cardigan in pink, orange, white. The tweed will, I think, look lovely with my black dress for my mother – in- law’s celebration of life. Since I’m not sure when it will take place I’m reluctant to order a jacket online. That’s my justification for buying both of these. I don’t need both of them but I could calculate many ways to wear both of them, thanks to The Vivienne Files.
Maybe I should order the ivory jacket anyway, so I won’t be caught unawares in the future.
Jeri B the tweed sounds lovely. Yes please to the navy. I have that Jessie Zhou scarf as I wear green and gray and sometimes together and it’s just perfect. Have a good day ladies.
Navy would be great…..I’m heading to a prayer retreat coming up in March, here in Canada….who know what the weather will be -10 or +10 that’s how it’s been lately….i never thought of mediative colours and wardrobe to bring…..but I LOVE the idea…..so I will have to think about what colours speak to me that are in that realm….nice little project for the next couple of weeks…..ANY IDEAS would be great to help me get started.
Thank you
Regina
Yes please for the navy!
I agree, yes to navy. I’m too messy to go for a weekend with only one pair of pants and that pair is white.
I was immediately struck by the bold colours then realized that I own very similar pieces, including look alike brackets. Shopping in my closet for my own exciting getaway will be fun and easy! Thanks always for the inspiration!
I agree with the navy crew. Seems more practical than white if possibly getting dirty is on the agenda.
Ah, Janice, you have taught me well. I would scoop up the greens and blues in this capsule to wear with my new Lands End sale purchases in navy. And I would love more navy ideas, for sure. One of my purchases is a navy blazer. I am hoping to find more modern casual ways to style the blazer. So I actual wear it more often… AND, so happy to contemplate going on a meditation retreat. I would add two shawls, one for the heat of day and one for cooler evenings. Next up I’m checking out some long weekend meditation retreats!
I like this wardrobe very much and have most of the pieces in my summer closet. Would love to see navy additions. We are traveling to see the Great North American Eclipse in April, and the weather will be uncertain. I might try to adapt this idea.
Plan to be COMPLETELY unable to drive the afternoon after the eclipse. We went downstate here a few years ago for the eclipse, and it took us FOURTEEN hours to make a 3 hour drive home. Traffic was so heavy that stations were running out of fuel, and McDonald’s had no hamburgers left! Plan to spend the night – it will be much less stressful than trying to come home the same day!
That said, a full eclipse is a life-changing experience, and well worth whatever it takes to see it!
hugs,
Janice
The Great Eclipse is having interesting impacts in communities. School closures (anticipated congestion) and county disaster planning (anticipated infrastructure strain.) Local farmers are renting out fields for camping.
After our experience during the last eclipse, all of this makes sense. I was astonished by how bad traffic was back into Chicago that afternoon/evening/night/early morning!
hugs,
Janice
Janice, yes we are staying the night before and after. Will attempt to get to our friend’s house for the actual event, but the hotel will work if necessary. We saw the 2017 eclipse from our own deck. It was amazing!
I LOVE this! I love white and I love color. This is perfect for me. My other neutral is navy, so it would be wonderful to see this expanded.
Seconded!!
Thirded! I love the cheeriness of the accent colours. I’d switch white for ivory. And yes please, I’d love to see navy!
It’s all a bit too bright for me! 😎 However, I like the idea of one neutral and four accents. I like a lot of choice. However, I would need to have an accent bottom just to ring the changes. So I’d probably have a matching bottom to the blue cardigan I’d also swap one of the shirts for a long sleeve accent top.
I enjoyed the look-back to the patterned jumpers. It’s one way to add pattern in cooler weather, instead of hiding a patterned shirt under a plain jumper or cardigan. Vintage stores and fairs are good for patterned jumpers from the 1980’s.
Lovely bracelets, and a great way to create a capsule: it might even move me on from my focus on scarves! :-) Now all we need here in Scotland is the warmer temperatures: bright and sunny at the moment, but clear nights mean lots of frosty mornings! I’m currently re-reading Liz Gilbert’s ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ and she is at the ashram, so the meditation retreat chimed in well. And, like Beth T, I also love the idea of one neutral and four accents. Many thanks for this, Janice.
The bracelet is so bright, cheerful, and pretty and would add a dash of brightness to many wardrobes. Looking back, a bundle of my husband’s family live in New York and yes, they wear black all the time! I think of them if I feel like I might wear too much navy, which I would love to see in this wardrobe.
I love the balance of a lot of white with pops of bright accent colors in the bracelets more than in the wardrobe capsule, and I’m not sure why. I guess it just feels like a LOT of white; I think adding navy (and/or a softer alternative like chambray/denim) would create a balance I’d like better for a wardrobe on myself. A white-haired heroine in a warm climate would probably look fantastic with a more white-dominant wardrobe.
That said, the outfits using the color formula of white inner column + accent color topper appeal to me a lot! The Jessie Zhao leopard scarf is gorgeous, though I would probably save it for a navy + green outfit and wear a scarf that incorporates white + the accent color in my own version of the outfits. I don’t wear white pants, but I’m already looking forward to trying a white top and skirt + accent topper when the weather warms up! This is combination I have hardly worn; looking in my outfit spreadsheet, I found one outfit of the day with a white column + cobalt cardigan and one outfit with a white column + medium muted blue print shirt-as-jacket. Clearly I have a lot of combinations to experiment with from my existing closet this summer.
Yes to adding the navy core!
I would like to make white a smaller core (or accent color) since, due to ankle swelling, I don’t wear skirts, shorts, or dresses. I’d just eliminate them from the core in this version of the wardrobe. I feel so inspired with this! Time to shop my closet for the accents and then see what needs to be filled in! Thank you, Janice!
Great ideas and love the bracelets. This heroine needs the Echo scarf with all the bright hearts. They would look lovely together.
It’s warming up in TX so I just went through my short sleeve/sleeveless tees. Tried all of them on and discovered the ones I never choose to wear have scooped hems. Why didn’t I notice this before? Oh well you can teach an old fashionista new tricks! Happy Monday all.
I was going to include that scarf, but it’s SOLD OUT! I can’t say that I’m surprised…
hugs,
Janice
I bought that scarf and it is gorgeous. Thank you, Janice, for spotlighting it.
I was debating all day yesterday about ordering the bracelet, and your comment pushed me over the edge. Good thing, because I was able to order the last one. I will use the bracelet and the scarf when putting together my spring/summer modules. Thanks for the great idea!
I love the white! Thank you Janice. When it comes to navy, I have a weird aversion to a dark navy…if it is an almost navy and not near my face, then it is ok…or if it is paired with bright white for a stripe top, that’s ok too. Today I wore dark blue denim jeans with a white and almost navy stripe top. It has enough lightness from the white that it works well. I look tired and older in dark colours near my face…something learned from trying on neutrals in store. Anyone else feel like a dark colour near the face doesn’t work well?
Kari, I definitely feel like that now that my colouring has faded. Fair skin and silver hair, the only thing left that’s dark is dark blue eyes. Unrelieved dark colours near my face seem to pick up every under-eye shadow, and make me look pasty, even if it’s unrelieved navy which used to be fine.
Very nice clear colors.
I would also like to see the addition of dark blue.
Great bracelet. Bright & breezy. For us Down Under there is a bit summer Christmas with the red & greens.
The colours feel a bit Piet Mondrian to me. I would wear more than one accent at a time which you have done in a couple of examples.