August 22, 2022
She loved his art the first minute she saw it! The clarity, simplicity, beautiful colors – all of it!
And she knew that this painting would be useful in helping her focus her ever-shrinking wardrobe:
A Mother’s Love: The Polar Bear Family by Jason Carter
She knows that the core of her wardrobe will be black, white and denim – this painting seems just right!
She start her autumn wardrobe planning with A Common Wardrobe. It’s not called “common” because the clothes are cheap or run of the mill – it’s called common because these are clothes that a LOT of people have in common!
That’s a good thing – you can easily find them, they fit in easily when you’re not sure what to wear, but best of all, the serve as a neutral background for whatever accents you wish to bring to your wardrobe!
For some women, it might be scarves. For others, jewelry. And for some of us, this is a base for a changing array of accent colors.
Sweater blazer – J. Crew; white tee – Lands’ End; relaxed v-neck cashmere sweater – J.Crew; white shirt – Lands’ End; black tee shirt – Lands’ End; chambray shirt – J.Crew; relaxed fit jeans – L.L.Bean; black stretch twill skirt – J.Crew; black pants – L.L.Bean
I imagine packing six of these garments, wearing 3, and packing a dozen scarves with the clothes… I could go a LONG time with this!
Our heroine sees the versatility in these 9 pieces of clothing – at least 9 outfits!
probably closer to 2 or 3 dozen…
But right now, our heroine sees the beauty of brown – autumn leaves, tree bark, coffee, chocolate, her sweetheart’s eyes…
Heather walnut cashmere sweater – J.Crew; earrings – Olivia Le; silk scarf – Max Mara; heather walnut sweater blazer – J.Crew; moccasins – Minnetonka
She can easily see how well these few pieces will work with her existing wardrobe:
But she takes another look at her current favorite painting, and notices the beautiful blue of the sky… Maybe some new blue things?
Hooded sweater – Benetton; pendant – Kendra Scott; cardigan – Benetton; tassel scarf – Metiseko; tote – Canussa
The blue would certainly be easy to wear with her current Common Wardrobe:
Now she has to choose! Or does she?
Which would you prefer?
love,
Janice
p.s. It’s not exactly 4 years ago, but it’s French 5-Piece Wardrobes, so I thought it was the perfect “flash-back” for today!
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I love the walnut color – the warmth and unexpected color against the core wardrobe. And love the reminder of the Common Core. Thank you, Janice.
I prefer to choose browns & blues that work together so I don’t have to choose one or the other, & I suspect our heroine might too!
I see my favorite color in all the world, in your wheel. Olive!!! When will we see it with the common wardrobe for ” A Mother’s Love”. ❤️Love ❤️❤️
Impeccable as always. I love Air Force blue but sadly Benetton does not deign to clothe anyone over a size 14.
Would you consider creating a Common Wardrobe for the tropics? Where it seems a lot of us are living these days, at least temperature-wise.
I second that request from the tropics
Would be interesting to see a French 5 for the summer too, given that layers and accessories can be really hot to wear but also bright and appealing
The utter peace of this common wardrobe gives me is amazing. My wardrobe is migrating towards a limited palette of navy/denim and white with a black accent, but I still have too many colors and too many pieces. I think this kind of wardrobe works for me fall and winter and into spring, but summer encourages more colorful attire and brings the chaos of too many decisions.
For me I love different kinds of blues to add those colors and contain the chaos. Obviously “it depends”!
I also know a lot of fashionable ladies who seemingly change their plumage by the season – earth tones in the fall and winter and bright in the summer! It’s ok to change it up
Janice I am curious about how your brown purchases of last spring have worked in your own wardrobe. And are you still wearing the pink things from a couple years ago?
I think with the brown and additional blue she has a year round wardrobe for an area that has year round mild temperatures- for example, San Diego, CA. No need for thermal underwear or heavy coats & wool scarves, if she lived there and didn’t travel elsewhere.
For me this is the same most of the time in the PNW too. :) Very occasionally do we need clothes for really cold weather.
The Common Wardrobe! This is a timely post. Each year, at around this time, I run amok. Well, a little bit. I see all the beautiful fall colors, maybe in new styles, and usually make bad purchases. I have gotten better over the last couple of years, and will return things now. Mostly. It is a good reminder that well chosen basics are the way to go. To avoid all stress, I would not even add accent colors. That’s just me. I, too, would like to see a Common Wardrobe for warmer climes.
Love the painting.
Oh my…I must be one of the few who does not follow a Common Wardrobe. Yes, it seems very useful and practical, but if I try to define one out of my existing closet, I give up in annoyance. Many items that appeared on previous CWs just don’t work for me. Denim-chambray shirts, black anything and solid blazers spring to mind. From today’s grouping, I have a white short sleeve tee, a white short sleeve button up and jeans in dark and white denim. So, must one have a CW or be able to create one? Can the lovely French 5 just be integrated as a few new items closely related purchased to refresh the 4×4, clean 13, etc for the season? I’m looking at adding a lovely mustard print blouse with blue and red and a new navy & red silk scarf as 2 of my fall 5. The mustard print is perfect to stretch my yellow items & the scarf will last for years. Still haven’t found the pullover in gold or a brooch or caramel cords. Those may not appear this year.
I’m with you, Kari. I look at the Common Wardrobe and go, “Nope, maybe, nope, nope, maybe, nope, yes, maybe, yes”. The French Five, on the other hand, may be a good way to sort “orphans” and other outliers into functional capsules. I certainly have a variety of accessories to work with.
Kari, that sounds lovely. I can do the common core in navy, black, and gray. With the exception of a white button down shirt. Absolutely can not get myself to buy one! I also don’t do jeans – still on the look out for that “perfect pair” which for me means comfort.
No Common Wardrobe for me either. I loathe button-down shirts on me, and I gave up structured blazers in favor of cardigans ages ago. Plus I’ve never met a white shirt I can’t stain within three hours of putting it on.
Janice’s week-by-week strategy worked best for me. I lumped summer and spring into “warm weather” and fall and winter into “cool weather,” so I have 26 slots for each half of the year. It helped me sort out a firm foundation of my navy and brown neutrals with room for accent colors. I only filled about 2/3 of the slots, but I still have plenty to wear.
For myself, I would prefer to the blue to the warm brown, but the blue is so close to a denim blue that I would feel like I don’t have any accent colors!
I love the blue side, but the brown side is beautiful too. If I wore brown I’d enjoy both. I love the concept of the French 5 as the accent module that livens up any neutral core wardrobe.
I see the common core as a general neutral core of 9 pieces. It’s a 2 – 3 – 4 pattern:
2 second layers- a cardigan or jacket & a pullover sweater
3 bottom elements – in this case a skirt, jeans and pants.
4 tops. – in this case 2 T-shirts and 2 button shirt style blouses
Add a French 5 in a favourite accent colour as Janice did her and these are:
2 second layer options and 3 accessories
Scarf, jewelry, and shoes or purse.
This becomes another 2 clothing items for a total of 11. There’s room for another French Five or several more plus more neutral basics as needed.
The neutral core just creates the backdrop that make the colours shine instead becoming a confusing disconnect of random colour.
I like seeing my accent colours as part of a group like this. Repetition of a colour in earrings or a scarf emphasizes the clothing pieces in that accent. It’s harmonious. I rarely use colour accents in shoes or handbag but it’s visually appealing in others who do. I like my colour on the upper half of my body.
My core would be similar but no denim. I’d pick 3 pants and my 4 tops would be T-shirts or pullover tops rather than shirts. I’d do grey, black & white.
I love denim blue, just not the fabric. I have my own French five in that blue. Cashmere cardigan and pullover plus a blue & white scarf and blue & silver teardrop earrings. Another pair of earrings made from polished abalone shell makes 5.
Margery,
I am loving your analysis of the key components of the CW, and except for your basic neutral colors, this sounds like a post that I would have written ! In fact, I looked twice to see who did compose it !
I agree, nice analysis, Margery! Seeing this laid out made something click in my head – the inclusion of 2 topper layers in the French 5 result in a topper-heavy wardrobe, for how I dress/launder. I would definitely want a higher ratio of tops than this. The look back post had a shirt in most of the French 5’s and that worked better for me. (I also appreciated that the shirts were prints that could be used to help incorporate the accent color into the base wardrobe, which is nice for those of us who don’t wear color-blocked outfits regularly.)
I am also reminded that the French 5 is often presented as a *shopping* plan, which means that while you could buy a French 5 in a new accent color, you could also bolster one or more existing accent colors. So when you put your capsule together, you might have more than the 5 items in that color. For example, I can readily see the warm brown French 5 as a further investment in an accent color that a heroine added for the first time last year, perhaps in a lower price point set like a t-shirt, an inexpensive print scarf (in which brown is not necessarily even the main color), a headband, a beaded necklace, and a set of bracelets. Once she knew that the color worked for her, she expanded into higher price point items like cashmere.
Living in a 4 season climate, I would have a different Common Wardrobe for each season…in which case I might as well skip the “common” part and build a capsule in another way. I always enjoy seeing Janice present a variety of ways to build a wardrobe as different approaches will be suitable for different heroines (or the same heroine at different points in life).
Thank you Shreebee, and Sally.
Yay!! The Common Wardrobe in all its interpretations and variations over the years is what keeps me coming back to the Vivienne Files. Much of it needs to be adjusted for my personal taste and climate, but it’s the starting point I need to make sense of the rest of a wardrobe. I prefer pants with flat fronts, tops that zip or only button above the bust, etc. But those are easy modifications. The Common Wardrobe is my closet’s true north.
Janice,
My black here would be chocolate brown with denim blue and white as my other two neutrals, so my two French Five groupings would have to change , but this was wonderful food for thought !
My two French Fives might be warm brick red or burgundy , and teal .
You’ve already inspired me to create my black white + blue wardrobe but I am definitely missing some great “common core” pieces!
Thanks for this review/primer- can it be both, why not!
Thanks to the ladies who wrote back about not doing a common wardrobe. I was sure that I had totally missed the lesson/message on that. Margery’s numerical analysis was very nice to see. The numerical breakdown is more appealing for some reason. Maybe it feels more fluid and open to personalization if it’s just broad categories like x number of 2nds, etc.
In the past Janice has done posts where she shows the common wardrobes in different colors and different seasons and different silhouettes. For me my common colors are navy and grey and I don’t generally wear button ups either. I almost never wear long sleeves because we heat with wood (and I would roast!). So mine looks like a knit cardigan (navy or grey), knit pullover (navy), and two short sleeve v-neck tees in navy and grey and two “dressier” rayon shirts in navy, a pair of straight cut cropped jeans, a pair navy “slacks” and dark wash bootcut jeans. I don’t wear skirts often. I think it’s more about having the basics to pair pieces with than the exact formula.
Thanks Janice for sharing this blog. I’ve now got some great ideas for styling a teal dress in my wardrobe that I rarely wear.