November 9, 2022
Let’s see what our last 2 heroines are doing…
The first decided to do her shopping at Nordstrom; she figures she’s got a ton of choices there!
Here’s where our heroine starts:
scarf – PJ Studio Accessories
With Daylight Savings Time giving our heroine a big dose of gloomy darkness, she decides to get a few tops in lighter, brighter colors…
striped shirt – beachlunchlounge; pink earrings – Ted Baker London; labradorite earrings- Dean Davidson; scarf – Treasure & Bond; dusty teal top – Bobeau; Blue Falls sweater – Caslon
When she gets her things home and into her wardrobe, she’s pretty pleased with how they seem to bring a bit of light to everything:
She’s not 100% sure about a pink scarf, but she always can re-gift it to a family member or friend if it really doesn’t work out!
Before she starts washing and ironing and putting her new things away, she pulls together a couple of outfits for each garment, just to be sure. And she TRIES EACH OUTFIT ON, just to be sure!
Our last heroine is shopping at Wolf & Badger this month! If she’s in New York or London she can shop in person, but browsing their website is never a chore…
Her inspiration scarf and color palette is the Ginko scarf:
She kind of hits the jackpot – including another winsome brooch from Fable England! (that’s the biggest problem with their things – once you have one, you want more; I can vouch for this…)
Brown top – anou anou; brown earrings – Vue by Sek; barn owl brooch – Fable England; gold scarf – Bellemere New York; sequined turquoise sweater – Yumi; mustard cardigan – Yumi
Her cardigan is WAAAY darker than the gold in her scarf, but she’s prepared to accept that she won’t be wearing that scarf with her new sweater…
Her gold scarf is a bit dark too, but that’s okay by her. And the brooches… sigh…
As all wise heroines do, she takes her new garments home and plays with them within the context of her current wardrobe:
Although I’m on day 69 of my black dress adventure, I’m still doing a tiny bit of shopping – a brown turtleneck AND a brown crewneck sweater. All of this brown is persuading me that I should indulge!
love,
Janice
p.s. Seven years ago, our heroine was channeling Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, in taupe and light blue…….
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I, too, bought a few pieces in a chocolate brown. It goes surprisingly well with a number of other colors in my closet. I also treated myself to the rabbit brooch from Fable. He is just as cute as he can be. A lot of happiness for not much money. I love the Ruskin’s meadow, and now that I’m actually acquiring some brown can appreciate the Ginkgo much more. Thanks Janice!
Yay to the rabbit brooch – he’s so adorable!
I am not surprised you are adding brown to your wardrobe. What you did with the Tree of Life scarf is pure magic. If I could pull off those colors, I would definitely be inspired to head in that direction.
While neither of these wardrobes are colors I can wear, I still enjoy seeing how things go together and especially appreciate the ways I can twist and rework the ideas with my own things. I was surprised at the brown turtleneck that made an appearance with the black dress last time but could see how it was perfect with that particular scarf. And now shopping for a brown sweater? I guess why I’m surprised you’re buying more brown is that you indicated the brown linen things were a failure. What was the thought process for all of that? Was a scarf the key?
I have a couple of black and brown scarves – like the Tree of Life, which I own. That pretty much pushed me over the edge. The linen pieces that didn’t work were NOT a problem because of the color – it was more that they were garments that I didn’t love… they were an impulse purchase that I should have paused on for a couple of days!
hugs,
Janice
This. When I want to experiment with a new color, silhouette, fabric you name it, I don’t want to invest but at the same time I have to still think about what I have loved and also I have hated and how it will translate to my next garment purchase.
Ahh. Totally makes sense now. Thx
Thanks for your work! I like the aqua and teal, especially with the first scarf you showed today. FYI, Daylight Saving Time (not Savings) just ended; most of us in the U.S. are now on Standard Time.
Good morning! I do appreciate the cohesion of your wardrobe builds. And I am learning from each one. Tree of Life was where I needed to start for discipline. But the rest of my closet is a bit chaotic. This month’s directions were ALL amazing, and I love today especially. I guess my lesson is: be my own heroine each morning :)
Be my own heroine… now that’s a mantra worth pinning to the mirror unlike the other nauseating phrases!
I think the Nordstrom shopper should also be looking for some blue pants or jeans similar to the skirt in color.
Janice-I adore the Ginko scarf groupings so very much!!
Finally my favorite appears. I love the colours in Ginko and they would fit well with many of my current things. I don’t have much brown in my current size, but am waiting to find a pair of wide leg trousers, skirt and a blouse. I did order a brown cardigan recently that should be fantastic if it’s the shade on the website. If not, I may be adjusting my work wardrobe plans…again. Or as a last resort trying to wrap my brain around practical sewing instead of decorative. Ever notice that just because you can embroider and cross stitch exquisitely, people assume you can whip out a wearable garment? Janice, I’m glad that you are dipping into the world of brown. Hope we hear more about the new sweaters and if the brown is a temp accent or maybe permanent. Love the Ginko today.
Ginko! Ginko! Ginko!
I love the pink with the olive, and the duck egg blue is also nice…so glad to see how that’ capsule is developing. The teal and brown is such a gorgeous, rich color combo.
And thank you for reminding us we need to try these outfits on before we commit to a purchase! Things don’t always lay on our bodies as nicely as they do laid out flat. And there’s never a better time to figure out how you’re going to style things in terms of tucking, rolling hems, pushing up sleeves, all those little aspects of how you wear it or in terms of accessories than when the item is new to the closet.
Following up on a previous post, I’m curious what readers do when an online purchase is clearly not the right color: do you try the item on anyway? I often have in the past (unless I actually dislike the color) but lately I’m wondering whether it’s not a great idea. If color is an important part of a purchase (such as: I’m looking for something that matches/blends to something I already own), and I’m already seeing it’s not going to check that box, does trying it on just make me more likely to keep something that I shouldn’t? Or is it worth seeing if the fit etc. rocks my world, in which case it might be worth keeping even if the color is not what I expected? I’m sure there’s no right answer here, but I do wonder how people approach that.
Me too! I do almost 100% of my shopping online. I only use 3 – 4 vendors though, so most often if the items are listed as the same color (sometimes they carry over from year to year) they will coodinate with what I have. Whether or not I return it vs keep it/donate it depends on what it is and price point. If it’s higher priced I generally return it. If it’s lower priced, sometimes I sit with it for awhile to see if it will work in (by some miracle). I just threw a tshirt in the Goodwill bag that I’ve probably had for a year (or more) and never wore because the blue was just too wrong. It didn’t go with anything then, and it still doesn’t work with anything I have now.
Good observation about price point – that does make a difference for me too!
I usually try on an item even if I plan to return it because the color isn’t right. Since many companies carry the same designs for several years, I like to see how well the item fits before returning it. If I like the fit, I will make a mental note to myself to look for the item in the future in another color.
I love the addition of the lighter blues to the first wardrobe. Dark teal has been the primary accent color in my wardrobe for 5 years, but I now feel washed out by it. The first wardrobe has inspired me to transition to lighter teals and blues.
I’ll participate, Sally! So many mistakes to be made when shopping online. I am donating a jumpsuit that was the wrong size. Even tried in store (a regular) and purchased online (petite). Oh, and I kept some Uniqlo tees, which are incredibly nice material, but run really small. Stores count on us just keeping the stuff, I believe. So wasteful. I try almost everything on for size, flattering color. My husband is from the St Paul area. Shoreview to be exact.
Hi from the Twin Cities, Lily! My husband used to work in the Shoreview area so I’ve spent some time up there. I think you’re right about stores counting on us just keeping things!
Often I want to go back and find a link for one of these outfits, but can’t seem to easily find which month it was added. Is there an easy way to search for this? Or should I go month by month to try to find the links? (Right now I want to find a purse.)
I’ve still not figured out a good way to “tag” each item by month added to the wardrobe; right now, I have to go back and look at each month! If anybody has a suggestion, I’m always open to ideas…
hugs,
Janice
if itks not too much trouble (you already work so hard on these!), you might keep a running list of all the links associated with a scarf wardrobe on a page somewhere (just a copy/paste of the links & labels you’re already putting below the images the month the item is introduced), and just providing a link to that link list page below the everything pictures each month. there wouldn’t be pictures on the link list page, but it wouldn’t be hard to scan down the list of labeled links for a coveted bag or sweater…. especially if the list had month headers in it. (i sympathize with leslie on this one because i’ve gone digging for past links on these too!).
Great idea! I don’t know if I can build this for this year, but next year I will definitely start this in January.
thanks for helping!
love,
Janice
Any links would be great! Thanks
Sally, I’ll share my thoughts re online shopping. I always open and try on because sometimes even when the colour may not be what I expected, I might find that the item checks a box I wasn’t expecting. For example, I bought a crepe rayon blouse in Duck Egg blue that arrived looking like a teal. I liked the fit and wasn’t trying for a hard match, so kept it. Several months down the road, a new style of blouse is available in what I think is the exact same Duck Egg rayon. It arrives and is more like a dusty 30s Nile green. I still try on and keep because it does work with most of the things as the first blouse, but also because I do not want the pain of returning to the UK. Things from Talbots are an easy return, so am more likely to take a risk on a maybe item and return them. If I order from House of Foxy, then I make sure that I love the item enough to keep it on its own merit. I watch HoF until the last moment to order asking daily if I really want the item enough to pay the shipping. I can honestly say that I have only been unhappy with minor things like buttons, too long trousers and a dress that is a bit too generously cut in the bust. All that can be fixed when I replace the buttons and take the trousers and dress to a seamstress to be taken up/in. So, yes, I always try on an online order because I also know that an item I thought might be marginal may end up being incredible like my mustard whirlaway skirt.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Kari. You’re right that sometimes an item does turn out to be pretty spectacular for us, even if not for what we were originally thinking, and esp. if the exact color match is not a key factor.
So, noodling around with the tag question…would it work to add the scarf name as a tag? For example today would have ginko as one and ruskins meadow as the second. If you were to break it further, you could do ‘ginko brown top teal sweater gold sweater earring brooch scarf’ listing only the new items? I don’t know how tags work, but that breaks down types of items if it isn’t too long.
What about tagging the name of the scarf and having a page with the list of items with their link?
I’ve been watching the shoes in these scarf heroines. Nine pair — but some are seasonal. How many shoes are enough? How do people develop an appropriate shoe wardrobe? I think I have too many, but then I look at these, and think, maybe I don’t have enough — or the right kinds….
And post retirement, has made that even more difficult. At least I knew (mostly) what I needed when I was working….
I definately have too many but then I have very wide feet. I have discovered an independent UK shoe manufacturer (DB Shoes http://www.widerfitshoes.co.uk whose shoes fit me and are very comfortable. I confess to going a bit mad…
I like the pink and light blue additions to the Ruskin scarf. They lighten up the mood of the wardrobe.
Answering Sallie’s question – yes I always try on. I also order more than one size to fit. Sometimes the colour can be perfect but the fit is wrong ☹ I’m generally frustrated with all aspects of online shopping.
At the end of the look-back, you ask if we’d like the wardrobe expanding. I would be keen to see it expanded and to explore which shades of blue go best with taupe. To work successfully, should you wear a bridging piece that combines both colours? I find it a bit bland without some decoration to bring it together.
Thanks for the look-back reminder post.
This is one of my favorite posts of all time. I just love the color combination and the clothes you selected.
I agree taupe is a tricky color, but it’s a great neutral when you can get it!