The Vivienne Files - Page 136 of 261 - Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature

How I Pack Light – My Secret Weapons in a Travel Capsule Wardrobe

April 25, 2016

First up, I have to let you all know that the "3 dress" packing experiment worked out beautifully! I felt comfortable and well-dress everywhere we went... I'm going to explore the idea of packing this way quite a bit more in a separate blog post or two, but if you're interested in giving it a whirl, I have 2 important pieces of advice.

Check the weather maniacally up until the very last minute before you leave, and be certain that you're packing the most appropriate dresses possible for the weather you anticipate. Dresses make layering a little bit harder, and nothing could be more miserable than the wrong dress on a beautiful day. (think of wearing a beautiful sweater dress on a day when the temperature ... View the Post

How to Combine 2 Capsule Wardrobes

April 23, 2016

Many of your mentioned that you felt that the capsule wardrobe based on the Sophie Taeuber-Arp painting (see it here) would work beautifully combined with the wardrobe inspired by the composite photograph of a lunar eclipse (see that one here). You're a bright crowd (but I knew that!); this is lovely!

First, the business capsule wardrobe with the soft mustard accent:

And then the more relaxed black and grey capsule wardrobe, spared with shades of terra cotta:

All of the clothes, in 1 place! There's really only 1 small tweak I would make to this - I would make sure that there weren't any "droopy" sleeves or armholes on the tops. Here, I would probably get a grey top that fit a bit ... View the Post

How to Wear A Navy Cardigan for Spring – 8 Outfits!

April 22, 2016

This started out as a Chic Sighting post, but after I saw the first woman, I didn't see ANYONE else... But I really like the idea of buying a new cardigan for spring and summer wear (counter-intuitive as it seems, a lot of us that are in and out of buildings during the hottest weather have to carry a cardigan or jacket at all times, to keep from freezing to death!).Here I'm working with 4 different possibilities for below the waist - white linen pants, beige linen pants, navy linen pants, and dark-wash denim pants. This gives choices that range from cool-ish spring days, to pretty doggone hot dead of summer!

Cardigan – L.L.Bean; green onyx stud earrings – Alok Jain; green & white top – Phase Eight; ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with a Scarf: Hermes Jardins d’Hiver in Navy

April 21, 2016 A friend received this as a gift, and doesn't know where to start... I have some ideas; I ALWAYS have ideas!

The red in this is actually a hair closer to rust, but since we're moving toward warmer weather here, and rust is IMPOSSIBLE to find, I'm working with a more poppy red. These accent colors don't have to be a flawless match to the color in the scarf, nor to each other. Unless you plan to wear pieces together, you needn't be madly rigorous in making the colors perfect in a capsule wardrobe.

Of course, when building around a single accessory, 1 outfit at a time is a good approach:

I reused a skirt in a couple of outfits, ... View the Post

The Power of Accent Colors in the Capsule Wardrobe: Blush and Turquoise

April 20, 2016

When I was working on yesterday's post, with the yellow accent colors my mother commented (quite rightly) that any number of accent colors would work beautifully with the black, white, and tweed pieces of clothing.So...

At a loss as to how to choose the colors to use for my capsule wardrobe experiment, I grabbed my brand new color analysis book that I bought it Paris, and I opened it with my eyes closed. Twice!

First, I found peachy, pinky, blush:

The whole feel of this outfit changes completely, with just a different scarf and earrings! Think of the relatively inexpensive possibilities...

Here, four more pieces are changed: a blouse, a sweater, a scarf and a bracelet. This feels so spring-like to ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Composition a Cercles a Bras et Rectangles by Sophie Taeuber-Arp

April 19, 2016 Another painting that I saw last week in Paris. That vacation seems so long ago now...

At first this seemed like a pretty straightforward color scheme, but there are a LOT of possibilities here:

She Does Modeling...

Square scarf – Isabel Marant; shoulder bag – Allsaints; cardigan – Simply Be; yellow diamond hoops – JCPenney; watch – Isabel Marant; tee shirt – J. Crew; pants – J. Crew; suitcase – Longchamp; loafers – Patricia Green Financial modeling, that is. The hardest work in the office, in many opinions.

Yellow silk shirt – Theory; leather bracelet - Bottega Veneta; silver square earrings – Gurhan; blazer – Nina Ricci; ivory top – ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Marguerite au Chat Noir by Henri Matisse

April 18, 2016

Yes, I saw this in Paris last week!

Aside from the charm and beauty of Marguerite, I was immediately attracted to the colors:

Quietly Rebellious

Cardigan – J. Crew; pants – Boden; tee – J. Crew; skirt - A.P.C.

She seems like the most conventional of women. Very pretty, always very nicely dressed.

Cardigan – Stella McCartney; jeans – L.L.Bean; tee – L.L.Bean; denim skirt – A.P.C.

She's rather quiet, a bit shy, and well-suited to her work in the library...

Blue top – Part Two; ivory shimmer tee – Mint Velvet; soft teal tee – L. L. Bean; salmon sweater – Odeeh

And yes, she owns a cat!

Tie dye tee – ... View the Post

Window Displays and Other Beautiful Things, Paris 2016

This is my last post about our recent trip to Paris, so I'm going to cover a few different areas, and toss in some bizarre, uncategorizable outliers...For B and me, Paris isn't Paris without food! One of the first things we have to do when we get to Paris, (after breakfast, of course) it find some eclairs. Coffee eclairs are a food group during our vacations!

The patisserie windows in Paris are always beautiful, and there are a LOT of them; seldom do we have an "eclair emergency" that can't be assuaged in just a few minutes.

This sugar isn't just refined; it's positive elegant!

I love this - it dumbfounded me that walnut meats could be displayed so elegantly!

And those beauties on the top left are Merveilleux ... View the Post

A Big Parisienne Advantage: Costume Jewelry, April 2016

April 15, 2016

While I know that some of us don't wear and don't like costume jewelry, there are others among us who cheerfully indulge when something makes our heart sing. And Paris is the best place I've ever been to buy costume jewelry.In the US, the "fashion" jewelry industry is dominated by the 4 "department store" brands (which shall remain nameless), and thus we have to do some creative searching in order to find something out of the ordinary. But in Paris, it's a different story. Want a pair of earrings that look like pansies? Easy... a bracelet that looks like a row of ducks? I can find that... earrings that look like gorillas hanging from your ears? check the Diwali store just south of Notre Dame; they were in the ... View the Post

Paris Graffiti and Street Art, April 2016

You might not fully appreciate my love of good graffiti, but I walk a LOT in Chicago, and never get to see anything nearly this witty or just plain well-executed. The graffiti in Chicago is that same tired, self-aggrandizing and incomprehensible "tagging" that's some variation of initials or names, written large, and badly...Okay, this guy was NOT graffiti, but I think someone sitting outdoors, playing a harp, qualifies as street art of the very finest quality!

Some of the graffiti is just small pieces on a wall (sometimes quite HIGH on a wall); and sometimes, you see a bike driving out of the building. Very Harry Potter-ish...

The first image was seen quite a bit, and was apparently part of the sponsorship project for the ... View the Post

What Women were Wearing in Paris, April 2016

April 13, 2016

Well okay, not what everyone was wearing, but what caught my eye...

Belovedest OF COURSE knows what I'm doing when I'm looking at people in Paris, and he's turned out to be an invaluable partner in spying patterns and noticing the garments that seem to be worn by 10% of the people we see.

First up - grey jeans! We couldn't tell if these were black jeans that were well faded, or if they were jeans that were grey by design. At any rate, we saw them often, and generally they weren't skin-tight. We saw virtually nothing cropped, but quite a few jeans were rolled neatly at the ankles, exposing jazzy socks...

Toothpick - J. Crew; blue/grey – MM6 Maison Margiela; tapered – H&M; classic – ... View the Post

The Highlights of Our Paris Vacation

Yes, honestly, I looked down at our feet, and the wee heart-shaped pebble was right there between our toes... It was that kind of vacation!

It really was one of the best trips ever - everything fell into place for us to a degree that's almost impossible to describe. We had 20 minutes of rain (during which we stood under an awning and discussed the rest of our day), we ate like crazy people, discovered some new (to us) cocktails, did some excellent shopping, and walked about 10 miles every day. Despite the mad amounts of eating and drinking that we did, I lost weight...

The first highlight - we got to see the Paris Marathon. As runners (well, in my case, as a fast walker/runner), seeing the elite runners at the head of the ... View the Post