The Vivienne Files - Page 3 of 262 - Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature

September 2024 Start with a Bracelet – Fierce Abundance Bracelets by Fierce Lynx Designs

September 27, 2024

Perfect for autumn:

She can take some time off this fall - what a luxury! A little photography, perhaps?

Her packing will have her blending into the forest!

It's not her usual style, but she couldn't resist the cardigan...

Everything else was simple. Her two orange sweaters aren't as much alike as they seem to be; she knows she will wear them both!

She gives everything a careful "once-over" before she packs... Socks? Clean undies? Pyjamas?

The most important thing that she checks (well, not as important as underwear!) is that she has what she needs for at least a few outfits:

How many of us make it out into nature during autumn?

love,

Janice

p.s. Ten years ago, we ... View the Post

Warm Accents With Black? Start With a Scarf – the Jasmin Savoy Brown scarf by Echo

September 25, 2024

It's been a while since Echo released one of their Echo 100 scarves - what fun these scarves have been...

And this is perfect timing, because one of our heroines who is devoted to the black core of her wardrobe has been invited to a wedding for which the color palette is warm, autumn colors! Can she do this? Heck yes...

She had already been considering adding brown to her wardrobe for ages - her eyes are brown, for heaven's sake! So she finds a few things...

She knows that she's going to need something to wear to the rehearsal...

It's the same outfit as the first outfit, only backwards! This time, she's wearing a brown column with black over it:

What to wear to the wedding???? It's ... View the Post

Looking for a Wardrobe Spark? Pantone New York Fashion Week Spring 2025 colors

September 23, 2024

Ah, one of my favorite projects! "New" colors are always fun...

I feel like the Pantone people had a meeting at which they decided that their work needed to be more "green," and that someone misunderstood the assignment. Lots of shades of green in this list!

But let's start with Orangeade, which I kind of interpreted in a more rust direction, for autumn:

I like this warm light brown, but I might have tried harder to give it a more appealing name than Bran...

I don't know why you'd take a nice shade of light camel and give it a slightly greenish cast.... OH WAIT, this is the green season...

I wish I could think of any legitimate reason for me to own this next scarf, but it would be fiction! If ... View the Post

Denim and Ivory: Three 13-Piece Travel Capsule Wardrobes

September 20, 2024

I can't believe that September is 2/3 over! You'd think I wasn't awake every day...

Our heroine has looked at her wardrobe with cores of denim and black, and then with cores of denim and brown. Today, we're going to see how EVERYBODY'S favorite of denim and ivory looks...

This is our heroine's starting point - 27 garments in three "neutral" clusters, and then three "accent" clusters.

First, let's take a last look at her hard-working core of denim garments, with yet ANOTHER group of accessories. Wearing things every week is the fastest way to get your "cost per wear" for garments down; you can buy exceptionally nice clothes and still get good value if you wear things consistently!

The ivory ... View the Post

Denim and Brown: Three 13-Piece Travel Capsule Wardrobes

September 18, 2024

When we last visited our heroine with the modular wardrobe, she was packing in denim and black, with autumn-hued accent colors.

Just as a reminder, this is her autumn wardrobe in its entirety:

She's refreshed her accessories, as she moves into a few weeks in which she's going to pack her denim and brown cores. Each week, she will change to a new accent color, so while she's wearing the same clothes most of the time, she doesn't get bored...

Here are her denim pieces:

And her brown things - how yummy is brown?

She's found a new burgundy scarf, with a lot of deep green in it - it will look great with her evergreen accent pieces too. Sometimes that happens - you get lucky!

So for the ... View the Post

Three Travel Capsule Wardrobes in Denim and Black

September 16, 2024

You certainly remember that on Friday, I grouped a bunch of wardrobe clusters into a wardrobe that offered lots of possibilities for travel or for visibility in a small closet:

But we need accessories! While this wardrobe is fine without them, it's not much of a reflection of how women actually get dressed, eh?

Starting with denim! If you find denim shoes that you like, and you can picture wearing them, grab them. Denim shoes aren't growing on trees, and a lot of them are tricked out with lots of sparkles, embroidery and other unnecessary stuff that will just fall off if they get wet or you brush against something...

Today, I'm going to focus on wardrobe that use just two of the neutrals available to ... View the Post

Multiple Capsule Wardrobes Starting with Denim, Built Cluster by Cluster

September 13, 2024

In honor of Friday the 13th (not really!), I'm sharing a post that's been lurking in my brain for a while.

It's pretty backwards, in that I'm going to show you the complete wardrobe first, and then show you all of the options in this that I see...

clear as mud, as I can sometimes be, when I'm trying to use words, where pictures work better!

Here's the full 27-piece wardrobe for cool weather:

The questions that brought me to this included heroines who very much want a mostly denim wardrobe, heroines who can only keep a tiny portion of their wardrobe in their "main" closet at any time, and heroines who travel four nights a week EVERY WEEK, and who pack around a core of denim clothing...

So I ... View the Post

Should I Buy the Blazer AND the Pants? Boden Red Plaid Suit

September 11, 2024

She's working for a political campaign! And thus far, she's been wearing summer clothes, of course. But heading into the home stretch of this ENDLESS election (seriously, must this take 2 years?), she needs to pack and all-purpose suitcase for cooler/cold weather...

The temptation is this plaid suit. She loves the plaid, and she's not at all nervous about wearing something this bold. But she's still pondering if it makes sense to buy both pieces:

My approach to helping her with this decision is to show her outfit options using either the blazer or the pants... Her possible colors include the touch of yellow and bright blue found in the plaid, but I think frankly she's going to be a lot happier keeping ... View the Post

Need an Autumn Inspiration? Start With a Sweater – Fair Isle from L.L.Bean

September 9, 2024

Oh, so many of you are ready to buy something fresh for the upcoming cooler seasons, and SO many of you are hesitating...

A question I receive a few days ago - "I love earth tones - all shades of brown - but does it make sense to add this sweater to my wardrobe?"

Well, let's be honest - I love Fair Isle sweaters! All of the DNA tests assure me that I'm Scottish, Irish and French (of course!), so these sweaters are in my blood. And L.L.Bean does some lovely sweaters, that aren't priced to the moon and back. (I recently saw a Fair Isle sweater that appealed, until I saw the $500+ price tag...)

And if our heroine has a closet of browns and ivories (as she assures me she does), this sweater would be very ... View the Post

September 2024 “Six Paintings, Twelve Months” – Part 2

September 6, 2024

Sorry about that unexpected day off on Wednesday; I've discovered that grief and fibromyalgia is a potent, and quite miserable, combination!

Let's get to more fun things - planning wardrobes, especially with fall coming! Here in Chicago, we're supposed to have at least a few cool days this week, which is quite early for us; I generally don't expect to wear fall clothes until October, these days...

How seasonal is this next painting?

When I sorted this wardrobe by color, I separated the charcoal grey from the lighter greys - that gives us the numeric illusion that this wardrobe is dominated by red! In fact, it's still pretty close - there's a LOT of red in this wardrobe. But that's what the heroine intended, ... View the Post

September 2024 “Six Paintings, Twelve Months” – Part 1

September 2, 2024

This month feels like a new start for many of us - back to school and all that. In France, they call it "la rentrée" - the re-entry. Everybody's back from vacation and ready for the return of autumn...

So I'm going to look at these wardrobe with a few minutes of simple analysis, before I just tear off shopping with our various heroines!

Let's start with this most difficult (for me) wardrobe, based on a cheery and always interesting painting:

Five accent colors! Pastels AND brights! So not my style... which is great, right?

Just looking at this, I feel like this heroine might want to look for more green, orange or pink...

And let's see what she has, separated by function:

She ... View the Post

August 2024 Start with a Bracelet – Fierce Healing Bracelets by Fierce Lynx Designs

August 30, 2024

"Let's Go Away... for the weekend to the spa up in the next state. It's not a long drive, and we can spend the weekend sitting in a pool in our room, or walking around the grounds, or getting massages..."

She's not handling grief nearly as well as she thought she would; a break might be nice...

She's pretty sure she knows what she will wear for the ride, and she has every intention of wearing the robe provided by the spa much of the time. Still, she will need something to wear to at least get back and forth to the treatment rooms or to walk around.

She thinks that planning her wardrobe around the bracelets gifted to her by a dear friend might be just the ticket. She will wear her bracelets every ... View the Post