December 16, 2024
These are NOT traditional holiday colors, but they’re certainly bright and cheery enough to be appealing this time of year:
Of course, this scarf has more colors than our heroine has chosen for her palette—she’s pretty happy that in warmer weather, she can choose beige, olive green, or off-white.
Just a Bunch of Friends
It’s a tradition for all her friends who can’t get away to be with family this time of year; they get together at someone’s home for a few days, attend a couple of parties, go out to dinner, and go to a movie one evening…
It’s not dressy, but it IS festive. She dresses warmly to drive there, although the weather has been pretty moderate. She can’t leave until late—she can’t leave until all of the Christmas decorations are DOWN in her store after they close on Christmas Eve. She knows that it’s always cooler at night.
Cashmere sweatshirt – Nordstrom; scarf – Echo; earrings – Scream Pretty; pink phlox turtleneck – GAP; jeans – L.L.Bean; socks – Stems; clogs – SoftWalk; weekender bag – Baggallini
She always packs a skirt and a “matching” blouse because some of them might go to a religious service while she’s there. Otherwise, it’s jeans, bright tops, and some fun jewelry!
Bow earrings – Pink Reef; necklace – Anthropologie; “stack of gifts” brooch – Holiday Lane; gold snowflake earrings – Ross-Simons; navy lace-sleeve blouse – Boden; pineapple pointelle sweater – Boden; fierce pink cashmere sweater – Charter Club; denim skirt – Boden; orange socks – Stance; orange wrap top – Lands’ End; suede sling bag – Madewell; navy velvet pants – GAP Factory; ballet flats – Jack Rogers; waterproof boots – Hunter
It’s a fun balance of neutral denim/navy with some unexpected bright colors. And SOCKS – never miss the chance for fun socks…
Speaking of socks, if you are looking for comfortable compression socks, look at Wellow. I get no commission or recognition from them, but the socks are really comfortable and still do the “compression thing!”
This is a really difficult travel capsule wardrobe to get wrong! I swear I think she could dress in the dark with this wee wardrobe:
There is a world of different ways to celebrate the winter holiday season and a world of different ways to dress for it!
love,
Janice
p.s. Ten years ago, we were choosing an Hermes scarf to wear with navy; I had some ideas for how to choose!
Like this wardrobe? Save it to Pinterest!
I just love this capsule and think that this would be a lovely “long weekend away” through early Spring. It’s cheerful, cozy and bright…it just oozes happiness. While I don’t wear hoodies (as they read too middle school boy to me, as a teacher), it would be easy to switch the hoodie out to a navy cardigan or pullover. Plus, the festive jewelry add a Christmasy touch.
J’espère que Paris a été parfait jusqu’à présent.
How very cheery and just plain Fun! Just the ticket for the dark of the year. I would replace the cashmere with fleece zip ups and pullovers, just my personal taste. Love the accessories.
Love everything about this! Except maybe the pointed toe flats. But still…..This would be so me for the holidays. Thank you and I hope you are having a great time.
Love this! I’ve just returned from the 2nd of 2 weekend trips in cold weather and packed pretty much this way – dark neutral bottoms and matching dark cardigan plus a few bright, warm tops and a colorful plaid fleece shacket to tie them together. It worked beautifully. I do need to work on my winter shoes now. I just took out my booties and boots and discovered several are cracked and peeling. So sad! But a welcome opportunity to update.
I’ve just bought a navy sweatshirt with sequin and embroidered Christmas baubles in bright colours on it. A really cheerful and festive garment.
Hope you are having a great time. Thank you for this bright, cheerful capsule. It is always a wonderful treat to open these delightful emails and see what new ideas you have to show us 😊. I love bright, cheerful colours so you have given me some great ideas for our trip to spend Christmas with family.
Since I wear olive, navy, and bright colors often, this scarf would suit my closet well, though I would be looking for a way to fold it that doesn’t highlight the brand collaboration :/ (WHYYYY?)
This concept of navy/dark denim + bright tops for a travel capsule is right up my alley and is very adaptable. This specific yellow and orange are not great colors on me so I would sub in azure blue and possibly a print top/sweater that combines some of the colors. It would be easy to expand this capsule for a longer trip with a set of pieces in ivory/beige and/or olive neutrals as well as adding accent colors.
If you like the looks of the Anthropologie necklace, click through to a see a lot of gorgeous color options.
Love the Meredith clogs, in teal
I have the ‘orange’ Lands End top and it is more of a flame orange than the bright orange. I would say a bright coral red orange? Anyway it’s not the same as the orange socks or the orange in the scarf. Still it works well with navy or black and is very pretty on. I have a bright clear true orange cashmere sweater and the colours of the two tops are different.
I buy a lot from LE and find lately not only the sizes but the colours shown are not true. As well their quality and description of product is not as good as even a couple years ago. I ordered a red top and it is most definitely a claret red. So do be careful when ordering from them.
This wardrobe is based on a great equation. Highly adaptable to a person’s best colours.
I’m en route on a two-week trip to visit my daughter and family. I thought of Janice and everyone here as I composed groupings of two tops, one skirt and one second layer. I flew through the process and attribute that to Janice’s great posts that explain how it’s done. It took me MUCH longer to organize my toiletries, extras and how to divide things between my personalities and carryon.
I’ll eventually master those aspects too.
I now require injections of a bio med every two weeks so flying takes on new challenges. The med must remain cool so I’m learning how to include a small thermal bag – that will accommodate an ice pack and the meds – into my personal item.
Has anyone here had to pack and fly with chilled meds?
I once carried my last dose of an oral vaccine that had to be refrigerated. We were on a long overseas flight. I got ice after we went through security and kept it in an insulated bag. It worked pretty well and I suppose I could have asked for additional ice on the plane. However, the flight attendant saw me working with the ice/bag and said, “Oh, we could have stored that in the refrigerator for you.” Duh! Apparently they do it for insulin all the time, so you could check with your airline as to whether they will, what the size limits are, etc.
I’m so glad you mentioned this. 🤦🏻♀️ indeed. I’ve managed to avoid traveling around my injection (only every 8 weeks for me), but it’s so nice to know the option exists (pending asking the particular airline). It never occurred to me to inquire.
I’m not crazy about the scarf, but I love the navy and bright top combination. Such a versatile travel wardrobe. It could easily be dressed up with a silk blouse or two and a navy skirt in velvet or wool, or worn in the summer by substituting linen for the denim and velvet bottoms and cotton T-shirts or linen tops for the sweaters.