March 22, 2023
Our second heroine who plans to use a LOT of beige in her Spring and Summer wardrobe!
Here is the art that inspires her – she is captivated by the dark, intense lines against the neutral background…
this wardrobe would work really well with chambray/faded denim as a neutral, too!
She’s excited about the prospect of wearing deep, saturated accent colors with beige; her coloring is intense, and she is confident that she will look just right in these high-contrast outfits…
For starters, she assembles the beige core wardrobe that all of our heroines will have in common:
cardigan – GAP; linen shirt – J.Crew; pointelle tee – Alex Mill; natural jeans – L.L.Bean; dress – J.Crew; long-sleeved linen shirt – J.Crew; shorts – L.L.Bean; linen pants – J.Crew; sandals – Miz Mooz; loafers – Koio
And THEN she finds 8 garments for accent – chambray shorts and a matching cardigan, and then navy, green and cranberry shirts and tops!
Blue cardigan – Peraluna; navy gauze shirt – J.Crew; cranberry tee shirt – L.L.Bean; navy tee – J.Crew; green cardigan – At Last…; green tee shirt – Mirla Beane; denim shorts – L.L.Bean; cranberry tunic – L.L.Bean
If you like this shade of green, Mirla Beane has dresses in this color…
It all looks great on a 4 by 4 Wardrobe Template, but the REAL proof is when she gets dressed!
When everything is just assembled on her bed, it looks great!
Before she hangs everything up, she ponders her outfit possibilities for a few minutes:
I think this is lovely, but I have a hunch that this might be too much contrast for some women?
love,
Janice
Like this wardrobe? Save it to Pinterest!
I think she’s going to need some accessories to tie this together. I can’t wear such high contrast. I would tone it down a bit with a soft raspberry red and teal green with chambray and stone for me. Some gold jewellery picking up the vivid yellow would do nicely too. Love the look back – cardigans are so versatile.
I also like the idea of picking up the yellow in gold jewellery.
I find it interesting that while I do use this green in my spring/summer wardrobe, my neutral is navy. I just can’t seem to embrace the lighter colors. Trying to decide on another accent color for maybe a French Five. To me the denim/chambray work much better than the stone color. Happy Wednesday everyone!
With my winter coloring, I can’t wear stone, I need a bright white. Swap out the beige neutral for white, and this would be a perfect summer module for me. To make this truly workable, I would add an identical 8-piece core in navy (especially for traveling!).
Sandi, another Winter, that is exactly what I was thinking. With navy as a second core, I’d swap out the navy accent pieces for more of the other three colors. And yes, I’d love to see accessories with these.
Janice,
Maybe it’s my iPad, but I have not been able to link Pinterest to your posts recently .
Following on what shrebee said, over the past several days I’ve had recurring problems with the Contact button (both at the top of the page and at the bottom) and the Search function. The Search function occasionally works. The Contact form appears but will not Send–it returns an error message: “There was an error trying to send your message. Please try again later.” I’ve seen others complain about emails not being received, but I’m not a subscriber, just a dedicated reader, so I don’t know if it is at all related.I have had this experience on two computers, both Macs, both OS Ventura, using Safari and Chrome.
I had drafted this comment before seeing hers here. I don’t mean to hit you over the head with this since I know troubleshooting technical difficulties isn’t your strong suit. I was simply trying to seek out where you had stayed in Paris!
Yes, both search and pinterest have been not really working for awhile. There are work arounds, just takes a little effort :)
Janice,
To add to your woes — when I hit the REPLY to add a follow up comment to someone’s post, it does not allow it, but rather it sends me down to just below the last general post .
Reply doesn’t work for me either. I am still having problems with my subscription. I’m not receiving the emails after getting them for years. I’ve re-subscribed three times and it’s still not working. Seems that there are some big tech issues. Yikes! Not easy to solve.
I’m having the same issue regarding my subscription. I really dislike missing any of Janices’s posts!
Hmmm…I think the high contrast look with white would work better than with this soft beige. I’m having difficulty imagining what our heroine looks like where this combination of muted beige and deep accent colors would suit. But it’s always hard to gauge before a capsule and outfits are accessorized!
As a practical matter, do we really think the shirt and dress from J. Crew will layer well under these cardigans…esp. the sleek green one?? In my experience, wide short cuffed sleeves of this type are a BEAR to layer over. They don’t fit well under a constrained layer, have to be endlessly futzed with to fit, and even then can create an unattractive lumpiness to the sleeve of the cardigan. Has anyone here figured out how to layer over these types of sleeves successfully?
There are various high volume sleeves that we start seeing in spring collections (we saw a bunch of puffy sleeves in the last 24 seasons post) that I think really only reliably work when wearing the top as a stand-alone piece (or as a lightweight layer on top of something else). In Minnesota, stand-alone tops are not a thing until real summer weather hits…I need to have the option to layer over tops for most of the year…so they are limited in my wardrobe.
Also have not been able to Pin for a while and did try extensively.
I was thinking exactly the same thing about the sleeves, Sally. I would really like to see examples of how this would work.
I’m just getting started with this concept, and and learning so much here. Thanks!
Regarding layering and sleeves, it’s worthwhile to look at wardrobe sewing patterns that have a pattern for both a top and topper of some kind in them for ideas on what cuts work well together. It is also especially helpful to think about when particular design elements have been popular in the past. For example, traditional puffed sleeves are often paired with a vest or waistcoat that doesn’t interfere. I’ve seen this a lot in patterns from the 1940s. And, the sleeves on the shirt and dress that Janice featured above were also common in the 1980s, when jackets often were oversized and cut with raglan or dolman sleeves that offered more room to go over the cuffs.
Lyneisa – thanks for that perspective on patterns! i adore fancy sleeves (especially ones that are more puffed since they interfere less with my hands – bell sleeves, i’m looking at you! The topper question is always a real problem. i like the vest idea, and the jacket detail is interesting. Reminds me of crop tops coming into trend the same time as high-waisted trousers. Thanks for sharing!!!
Janice – lovely as always :) I love the vibrant accents!
…. and apparently the reply button is working for me. i’m using a laptop running chrome if that helps anyone.
I’m medium to high contrast and being larger on the bottom than the top, I’d probably not choose to wear my lightest color on the bottom. But I can see this wardrobe working very well with my chosen summer neutrals of medium wash denim and navy linen pants.
Love the wardrobe! Would wear it. Have most of the items in the closet. Also, is it my understanding that we will see the wardrobe based on the Horace Pippin painting for three more seasons? Thank you.
I love these highly saturated colours with the beige. For me, white would be too much of a contrast.
BTW, can people not just access the posts directly from Janice’s website?
That is what I do now. I previously received email notifications, but that stopped quite awhile ago.
I enjoy A LOT these 4 friends-1 core wardrobe series. It’s like expanding all the mix&match possibilities. I don’t mind the contrast, but would also prefer the darkest colors on the bottom and would probably go for a shade of pink instead of the berry. That’s just because reds are among my a/w accents and by now I feel ready for a change.
Cheers and blessings!
I don’t subscribe just read regularly. Since I am horrible with tech it sounds like it’s a good way for me to go! I have to say that while I love this painting and the colors I too would use white and denim as the neutrals. Maybe that’s a personal preference. I agree about fitting sleeves under some toppers. Interesting to look back at what was originally worn. I usually solve by grabbing a shawl type something to keep my arms warm in air conditioning. That is more likely to be an issue in TX.
Janice,
The Pinterest tab is now working — thank you !
What a striking wardrobe! I love this! I love the contrast and wouldn’t have imagined how beautiful it all looks together. I can’t wear beige as it washes me out too much, but this wardrobe almost makes me want to try!
Hi Janice…have resubscribed ( and confirmed subscription) at least four times and still not receiving the emails. I have checked junk and they are not there. Just letting you know as I cannot be the only subscriber locked out and missing three or four posts…I subscribe to fierce lynx and only realized you had a new post when she gave a link. I don’t want you to loses subscribers or think readers are getting email notifications when they are not. Maybe your tech tribe can look into this for you?This happened with another blogger that I follow I gave up and just catch up with her when I have time.