December 5, 2024
If you don’t want to wear red for the holidays, our next heroine is right there with you! But she has ivory and green in her palette, so she’s still going to feel appropriate…
As with all of our heroines, this one has a lot of clothes already – including a simple green dress that could get a lot of mileage during the holidays…
She also has a really nice green cardigan, that will give a holiday feel to ivory and beige things…
Heck, she could even wear a green hoodie for outdoor things like caroling…
She has amazing jewelry, and some really perfect scarves for her color palette. Maybe she’s looking for something with a holiday theme?
Her shoes and bags also feel pretty complete…
So she shops, with the list of things she already has close in hand… And finds a perfect, festive brooch and bag, an infinitely versatile dress, a hoodie (which I’m convinced everyone should own!), and a couple of sweaters. Even living in a warm climate, she will travel north, and will almost certainly experience a couple of cool evenings.
dress – Everlane; two-toned ribbed sweater – Lands’ End; mixed metal earrings – Janus Edinburgh; mixed-metal snowflake brooch – Chicos; ivory fleece hoodie – J.Crew; pink cashmere sweater – L.L.Bean; evening bag – Nina
As with every clothing purchase (except maybe a ball gown, or a wedding dress!), a new piece should translate into at LEAST two new outfits. At a minimum… Let’s look at our heroine’s options for her holidays:
This wardrobe certainly isn’t colors that I wear, but I’m pretty happy with how this heroine has managed to make a wardrobe with wide-ranging accent colors work for her. That’s really the only criteria for a “good” wardrobe – can you get dressed with ease?
love,
Janice
Earlier installments of this wardrobe can be found:
and the Christmas Introduction!
p.s. Ten years ago, I shared one last post about accessories for each of our “seasons.” Hats, watches, boots, gloves – all kinds of things!
Like this wardrobe? Save it to Pinterest!
The scarves in this wardrobe really are lovely.
I was trying to figure out why this wardrobe does not appeal to me when rust and green are two of new favourite colours. I think it is the lack of a dark neutral, as I prefer contrast.
Lise, this wardrobe doesn’t appeal to me at all. Wearing all cream or white will never ever be my cup of tea. But, I agree…there are some truly lovely accent colors and pieces here.
I can’t seem to find the list of links under each grouping, except one. Are they there?
The only “new” items in this wardrobe are the page that says December. Everything else was added in earlier months – you can find the links at the bottom of the page to all 12 earlier posts. (yes 12, there was one in December!) A lot of things are almost certainly sold out by now…
hugs,
Janice
When I look at this wardrobe my first thought is what a hodgepodge of clothes. But in reality, I think it’s so much more like many wardrobes. It’s certainly more like mine, in as much as, I have some pieces that look amazing with almost everything and some that are dedicated to only a few outfits. Sometimes I wear brights, sometimes muted or more pastel.
When I look at everything in TVF wardrobes I am always drawn to the cohesive, aesthetically pleasing wardrobes. The ones that look like you can always get dressed effortlessly every day for every occasion. I would love to have that kind of year round closet. But mine, even though it’s not in these specific colors, is closer to this type. So, while the Klee is not my ultimate favorite of the six, it represents a version closer to real life for me.
I’ll just continue to fantasize about the others while embracing the variety of this one.
Jeri, your observations nicely point out how important it is that we know ourselves when building our wardrobes. I also love to look at very tightly cohesive capsule wardrobes but know better than to attempt it for myself because my closet will always revert to my true preference for variety.
This example is a master class in building a wardrobe with both bright and soft accent colors. As others have noted, I would also prefer personally to have a darker neutral and some blue denim rather than all of the beige and ivory this one has. We have seen how magically various versions of brown work together in Janice’s previous posts, so substituting/supplementing with different browns would be pretty easy, I think.
As others mentioned, the light neutrals are not for me. Having said that I think the gold cardigan would make a lovely holiday outfit with the ivory bottoms and tops or dress. I think the new green sweater would work too. I just don’t see the other green pieces as holiday looks. I prefer the pinks for an icy vibe.
While some of the individual outfits have an appeal, I wouldn’t be wearing white or cream. I think what has always bothered me about this particular wardrobe is the mix of pastels and brights. As much of a “color crayon box” wardrobe as I have, they are all saturated colors (I think I’m using that term correctly – Sally in St. Paul is much better at this than I am!) so there’s a certain amount of cohesiveness there. This one just doesn’t do it for me.
Yes, the mix of bright and soft (i.e., the varying saturations as you well put it!) is a challenge. I think Janice did very well with it, but if this is a dimension on which a person is sensitive, it would definitely be easier and more cohesive to pick accent colors that have a similar saturation level.
Or if a person really doesn’t want to choose, there’s always the option to adapt the color palette a bit seasonally – for example, using more of the lighter, less saturated pastel colors in spring/summer and the darker, more saturated colors in fall/winter.
But if a person has two “moods” they like to dress in, they could definitely consider it a “bright” module and a “light” module with a common neutral core and not worry about how any of the “brights” would mix with the “lights.” That doesn’t look as pleasingly cohesive on paper (or in the closet), but it might be extremely functional for the right heroine.
I think it’s the pleasing look that bothers me some. But one could move the lighter/less saturated colors to the back of the closet for the cooler months. Then switch in warmer weather. And as always Janice has done a great job of something for everyone!
The items that were gotten for December are really lovely. The soft green fits much better with the overall white and cream vibe.
I think that my biggest pain point with this wardrobe are the orange, yellow, bright green and plaid pieces. They just clash with everything and are too harsh. So I would toss those and replace them with things that were softer. Pastel yellow, green and orange would blend a lot better with the overall look of it I think. It would still have the almost full rainbow with pink, yellow, peach, sage and blue, like the original painting, to go with the white and beige. But so much more harmonious.