The Vivienne Files - Page 200 of 268 - Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature

Still Dreaming about Paris, and Packing…

February 4, 2014 Really, we're not leaving until mid-March! But I always do this - start planning weeks ahead of time. I rationalize it that (1) anticipation is a substantial part of the fun, and (2) if I plan carefully, I won't have to pack so much, and I can catch garments that need mended, or shoes that need tended, before it's too late to make the necessary fixes. When I left off planning, it was Tuesday morning - and I'm sure we're going to go to the Musee Guimet. It's Asian art, it's beautiful, and it's usually quite empty. We go there almost every time we go to Paris, and we're never disappointed. Our plan for this day might include taking the train out to La Defense, the business development in the west of Paris. ... View the Post

The Detritus of a Crowded Mind…

February 3, 2014

1. There's a great Calder exhibit right now at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. We love the MCA - although the building looks like a government bunker from West Germany circa 1960, the inside is light and bright and often full of amazing things. Sometimes full of troubling things, but that's what you get with contemporary art - you can't always fully grasp it first time through. AND, they have one of the best gift shops in the known universe. Particularly their choices of children's books and toys. I do much of my gift shopping there... 2. I had my first experience mailing clothes to Thredup.com, and this part of the equation is beautifully ... View the Post

Start With… a Plate? A Great Blue, Green and Beige Idea!

February 1, 2014 One of the best questions I've ever received... One of my friends really loves this plate, and wondered if it would be a good basis upon which to choose clothes. Heck, if you can use a painting, you can surely use a beautiful piece of pottery... Look for beautiful shades of blue and green, with beautiful soft white (or brown) neutrals...

love, Janice

... View the Post

From Dream to Suitcase

January 31, 2014 We'll be in Paris soon, and I'm already daydreaming about what we'll do while we're there... First off, I'm trying really hard to look upon the whole flying process as positively as possible. I can sit for 8 hours without a whole lot of trouble - I've done it at work for decades, so being on an airplane isn't that big an adjustment. I can hold hands with Belovedest, relax, and listen to music or some of my favorite apps on my phone. I've recently downloaded Insight Timer, which has dozens of guided meditations that are grand for relaxing... and then I can switch to one of the many apps that is just one long soundtrack of thunderstorms. A bottle of water, some skin serum, and I'm good ... View the Post

Start With Art: The Breakfast Room by Childe Hassam

January 30, 2014 My life - wardrobe-wise - is now an interesting contrast between being in gym clothes, or leisure clothes, for much of my time, and then every now and then I have to look like I belong in a business meeting or a dinner party... Apparently I'm not at all alone, because many people have asked me about how to have a coherent wardrobe strategy when you dress for such a wide variety of activities. So I chose one of the very beautiful paintings suggested to me, and went to work. This painting is an innovative combination of accent colors, some interesting asymmetry, and a wide range of grey through beige and taupe neutrals. First up - the gym! Being able to use grey as a neutral is ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting With a Scarf: Navy and Burgundy

January 29, 2014 What if you bought a new scarf, and you liked it so much that you decided to make EVERY clothing purchase, for a year, based on the colors of the scarf?

I get lots of questions about red, white and blue wardrobes, so when I was asked to address this scarf specifically, I thought it could be great fun. This looks like a tremendous amount of shopping, but do bear in mind that the average American purchases 68 garments and 7 pair of shoes per year, and that it's entirely possible that you already own a few of these items... This budget is pretty extreme, but I'm pretty confident that you can find beautiful items for just a bit less ... View the Post

Some Winter Thoughts

January 28, 2014

I grew up in a very snowy and cold place, so these Polar Vortexes don't completely overwhelm me, although they're pretty doggone dreadful... My parents were particularly adept at handling the cold, and so I have a few ideas and insights that might be useful.

Cover your head - at least your ears. It seems really obvious, but lots of people manage to skip this part. If your hair absolutely won't sustain a hat, at least put on some earmuffs - those bare ears sticking out of the side of your head are a freeze magnet.

And you should avoid wearing big earrings, necklaces next to your skin, or anything metallic that touches you directly. Metal gets ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting With a “Difficult” Scarf: Liberty London Ianthe Scarf

January 27, 2014 Yes, I was going to take the day off, but I had this post finished... Liberty London makes this scarf is a variety of colors, some assorted sizes, and at least two different fabrics that I know of, but no matter how it's done, the Ianthe scarf is a popular classic. But this scarf is subtle, understated, and challenging... I really honed in on the subtlety of the coloring, and determined that very muted, dusty or milky colors would blend best. The overall curved patterns combine to form a starburst feeling, which I wanted to hold in the back of my mind, and the very fine detailing meant that I was going to be watching for small stones in jewelry, fine but visible textures in fabric, and ... View the Post

Many Small Thoughts – Collected

I often notice things that I want to remember to tell you all, but much of the time, no single thing is worth a full blog post. So today, you get a whole bunch of relatively random factoids in one place. ( can you believe that Spell-check did NOT reject the word factoid?)First up, the weather in Chicago has been uniformly dreadful - bitterly cold. But my feet has NOT been cold when I was out, and that's because I wear Bogs boots. I wear them with nothing but tights on my feet, and my feet don't get cold. Ever. It's amazing.

They're not sleek,and they're not elegant, but when you're dressed in 14 layers of clothing and you look like a walking boudin noir, warmth is all you care about, ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting With a “Difficult” Scarf: Sepia and Light Grey

January 24, 2014 One of my friends asked me specifically to suggest some ways to wear this scarf - Musique des Spheres, from Hermes. The scarf came out... at least 10 years ago? And thus is only available on the secondary market, but as you can clearly see, it's a stunner. There is NOT a pink patch in the upper left corner... I struggled to find the best image of this scarf I could, and this was what I found. Identifying the adjectives that convey the aesthetic of this scarf is difficult - I had to think and study for quite a while. But I found that I kept coming back to the ideas of contrast (the clarity of the lines against the background), balanced with an overall sense of muted coloring (the scarf is not pure white, ... View the Post

We Need to Talk…

January 23, 2014

That said, I've got to confess: I'm getting overwhelmed. I've tried from the inception of The Vivienne Files to post six days a week as often as I possibly can. This usually meant that I was working at least part of six days a week, and I never minded that.

But recent posts are taking a very long time to compose. For each garment or accessory I show here, I look at at least 1,000 rejects. The images usually have to be cleaned up in some way, and resized. By the time I've created the hyperlinks, and drawn some nifty little dividers on the pages, and tweaked everything to my satisfaction - well, you can appreciate the effort. And then it takes me a couple of hours to find the right words to translate what's ... View the Post

Start With a “Difficult” Scarf: Black and White

January 22, 2014 This scarf, currently available from Hermes, is incredibly beautiful - much more interesting in person than any photograph can do justice...

But it's easy to see how you could fall into the routine of wearing this scarf pretty much exclusively with black and white garments - it just seems reasonable. So I'm proposing a mental "reframing" of the scarf that might expand your comfort zone with it... First off, think of the adjectives that characterize the unique beauty and appeal of this scarf. To me, this scarf is clear, graphic, and linear. This gives you a basis upon which to think about the sort of outfits that might benefit from the addition of this ... View the Post