February 16, 2024
It’s been a few days (well, weeks…) since we’ve had a new Echo 100 scarf – but the new ones are well worth the wait!
This scarf – endless, ENDLESS possibilities:
One could choose any colors from this to include in a palette – brown and red? beige and orchid? It took me a couple of minutes to settle into what I wanted…
My choice – this time! – was to select a variety of accent colors, one soft, one bright and warm, one bright and cool, as well as the three most obvious neutrals of brown, beige and white:
If our heroine is yet another among you who is travel in the Spring (and BOY are there a lot of you planning to run about in March and April!), I’m assuming that she will want to travel in dark colors, that won’t show those stains that follow us on our journeys…
Roasted cocoa linen tee – J.Crew; scarf – Echo; earrings – Veronica Tharmalingam; cardigan – Alex Mill; pants – J.Crew; bucket bag – J.Crew; lapis bracelet – Veronica Tharmalingam; flats – Birdies
Once she arrives at her destination, her desires might be to dress in a more subtle, low-key palette. Her favorite shirt – in THREE colors – is the easiest imaginable way to manage this! A sweater and a couple of pairs of pants, and you’re DONE…
Pearl earrings- Rodela; curve CZ earrings – Area Stars; three poplin shirts – Alex Mill; necklace – Madewell; pink stone bracelet – Swarovski; white chino ankle pants – Lands’ End; tan linen pants – Caslon; crossbody bag – Madewell; vellum cardigan – Alex Mill; scarf – Jessie Zhao New York; sandals – Munro; sneakers – Birkenstock
Her travel capsule wardrobe, assembled the night before leaving (she actually folds and packs in the morning, because that’s her way!), seems to be all over the color-palette map! But she knows what she’s doing, because she started with a perfect scarf, and a clear color plan:
Just for her own amusement, she mentally assembles a half-dozen outfits – alternating bright accents with overall subtle ensembles…
Imagine a wardrobe for the dead of summer based on this scarf – lots of white, with a wide range of accents! Tie the scarf as a belt, or in your hair, or on your summer tote bag…
love,
Janice
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LOVE this scarf! Love the range of options and the base colors you chose. Thank you Janice!
That looks like a lot of ironing for a shortish trip – 3 button up shirts and 2 pairs of pants that will wrinkle 😬
I would just fold everything really carefully, and then be wrinkled! I don’t mind if my clothes have more wrinkles than my face, at this stage… But if you are a “crisp and neat” kind of person, tee shirts or something knit would be much better.
hugs,
Janice
There’s so much to love about this scarf and capsule. This Echo scarf really could parade into just about any woman’s closet and bring a plethora of new outfit ideas. ❤️💙😍😍 I’m just a little giddy that you’ve found that tee & pants column in brown. It gets worn with nearly everything: apple green, salmon, aqua, flamingo pink, geranium red, ivory – to name a few. It’s the rediscovered neutral I get so much mileage from and I feel great in it. Oh, and the earrings! Lovely.
I’d love to see you make other wardrobes from this scarf. It has loads of possibilities.
Add me to the list of Spring travellers; I’m heading to TN in late March for some Mom/Nana time!
Confession: while waiting in US airports, I sometimes (though not frequently) see women in very put-together outfits and I wonder if they follow TVFs. 😉
I do the exact same thing! I don’t fly often, but when a see a women who has the perfect bags and outfit, I think TVF!
I’ve been looking through your posts for a few months and have found some inspiration for my own closet.
The inspiration scarf had a beautiful range of colors. The brown, tan, and white colors are great base combos picked from the array of colors. I like the blue and yellow accent colors as well as the second scarf.
When I saw the inspirational scarf had orange, I was hoping to see some orange in the mix. I’ve observed that your accent colors are mostly on the cooler side and was hoping to s e a warmer step into spring.
Thank you again for the ideas, and I look forward to reading more of your posts .
Dear Regina,
I confess – sometimes I cheat and select the accent colors that I like! And sometimes I choose them because I know that I can find clothes in those colors… I will try to be more balanced in my choices, I promise!
hugs,
Janice
Gorgeous! Not my colors, but I can substitute. What really peaked my interest is “3 identical shirts in different colors” and the way you showed them as outfits. Button-fronts (down or up ;)) are decidedly NOT my style, but I notice you showed one plain with a scarf; two under a cardigan; and one open over another top(or at least that is how I interpreted your vignettes). I love that you can wear the same style but in essence break up the silhouette a little so it doesn’t scream that you packed a “uniform” and are wearing it the same way every day. Do you think that can apply to other shirt-styles (non-buttoned)? like 3x long sleeve shirts or 3x short sleeve or 3x cowl neck tees…
Definitely in ❤️ love with all of this…. Quite tempting as I wear a lot of beige in summer … love the brown and blue together! ❤️❤️
Had my doubts when I saw the color wheel but you made it work beautifully. I’m becoming a fan of Jessie Zhao designs, adding her scarf with softer colors expanded the outfit options to make this capsule work. A nice balance of bright and soft colors…because sometimes your mood leads you to make a statement, other times to just quietly be.
Janice,
Firstly, what a super post, as I love color options ! What fun thinking of the various choices to be had ! Secondarily, I continue to learn about what best suits my own level of value contrast comfort . Case in point — the travel outfit. While I love the idea of the brown and blue worn together, in my case, I would need the blue to be a lighter slate blue . Or wear an off white top with the brown pant and the blue cardigan and a connector piece as a scarf or necklace that combines the colors, or even just some gold jewelry . I am loving your choices of accessories here ! When I wear contrasting colors that are similar in value, something seems “ off to me” and that is because of my own personal level of value contrast. So— confirmation once again of what works best for individually me — thank you for that !
While I don’t especially care for these colors, I do like the blue and brown and the brown with the Vellum cardigan. I also just adore Jessie Zhao scarves. Although the Echo 100 series has made a dent in my budget over the past several months.
This is absolutely wonderful! Love the fresh colors and silhouettes! :)
Finally an Echo 100 scarf that I really like! Lots of color extending all the way to the borders of the scarf. And I have yet to meet a Jessie Zhao big cat scarf I don’t adore.
For me, the success of this wardrobe hinges on the blue cardigan, which is serving as a semi-neutral here. It’s just muted enough to function as a neutral but just saturated enough to stand up well with the particular shades of yellow and pink that were chosen. It’s also bright enough to function as an accent color with the neutrals. I don’t think you could readily substitute a different blue (a darker one like navy, a brighter one like royal blue, a softer one like soft indigo) and get the same effect. That yellow shirt is a particularly difficult one to pair with even other semi-neutrals, but I think there’s probably a semi-neutral just-dark-enough/just-saturated-enough green that would work (though not the soft green in the scarf, to my eye). Lacking a blue item in that ultra-versatile shade, a denim jacket wouldn’t be a bad substitute, though. And if you exchanged the yellow for a different accent like the soft green, there would be a lot of possibilities.
I’m not the hugest fan of white columns, but I often wish I were when I see them in a capsule. But in this case…nah, I’m still not feeling it, and I think that’s because the optic white feels too bright for the soft beige neutrals and for the Echo scarf. The white in the color palette actually surprised me because I don’t see white in the Echo scarf at all.
I just clicked over to see the scarf on Echo’s site, and even though it’s right here on the same monitor, the colors like substantially brighter! Not that it’s a deal breaker for this wardrobe, but the brighter looking scarf would lead me in a somewhat different direction in putting a capsule together. Interesting.
I liked that the colors selected for this capsule were not the easiest ones; it gives a lot to think about in terms of our own preferences and what we like to see in putting disparate colors together. But there are so many options here that I think you could develop capsules from now until the end of 2024 based on this scarf! :D
Same for me, Sally—much brighter at the Echo site. It’s across the board, though it’s the pink and orange that really draw my eye as brighter. I think I prefer the more muted version Janice shows, but that may be because of my grey hair now making muted colors better for me than brights (as you say about thinking in terms of our own preferences!). There certainly are a lot of options for capsules here, and even more if you worked with both the muted and the brighter images.
What a pretty scarf.
I would buy it immediately if my car didn’t have an expensive repair…
I love the combination of the clothes.
Especially the three shirts, which immediately enhance any outfit.
By the way, instead of blue, I would choose the blue-green & darker pink for myself.
This is weird…I like brown…a lot. I like blue…but for the strangest reason, my first thought on seeing the travel outfit was that it was ‘off.’ Then my next thought was how they didn’t feel right together, but with other items, they would be quite nice. I do love the pale shades in the rest of the wardrobe. To make it work for me, I would swap the pink shirt for pale blue and change the blue cardi for a brown. Wear the blue shirt for travel with the browns and use the brown travel shirt elsewhere.
Omigosh I have a scarf with almost the exact same range in abstract shapes, except it has black instead of brown, and some turquoise as well. I never wear it because it always seems so loud, but this was eye opening, as I have most of these shirts/pants or some variation already in my closet. Wearing it today with a dark turquoise dress. THANK YOU.
So beautifully balanced! Love the amount of combinations achieved with so few pieces.