The Vivienne Files - Page 55 of 262 - Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature

I Love It, But Will I Wear It? Grey V-Neck Cashmere Sweater

March 8, 2021

Let's look at a lovely grey sweater!

please note that this style is loosely cut, and oversized; if you're looking for something more traditional, try this one! or maybe one of FIFTEEN colors of the crew-neck sweater...

As before, we will take a look at how this sweater works in an outfit that includes another neutral color:

The first thing that I did when I started this post was to copy over the outfits from the camel sweater adventure, remove the camel sweater and plug in the grey one. Just as a starting point, you understand?

What I found was that I had to only make minor changes in the accessories for some outfits to get a better "feel"; in the case of 2 outfits I didn't have to change a thing!

For ... View the Post

Searching for Balance: Start with Art – Meadow by Mainie Jellett – The 2nd Version!

March 5, 2021

Let's take another look at this painting, with a heroine who is looking for a balance of light and dark, soft and bright...

The original post is here...

Here color palette is more like this:

you'll notice that this heroine has chosen quite a few of the same garments as our heroine from a couple of weeks ago; I'm interested to see if this will work!

The pants that she's chosen as the base of her March (ish) wardrobe are a mix of darker and lighter:

From here, our heroine is going to choose 5 small, 4-piece clusters, and these 20 garments (plus 1 Wild Card choice) will make up her Garde-Robe du Mois for the next 30 days, more or less!

This will look familiar; with a great scarf or jewelry (or on ... View the Post

I Love It, But Will I Wear It? Camel V-Neck Cashmere Sweater

March 3, 2021

A surprising number of us are hankering for a touch of camel in our wardrobes, and who could blame us? Warm, rich looking, not seen every 15 seconds in a crowd...

And when I saw the teen-aged girl at The Art Institute wearing a simple sweater with a classic white shirt and blue jeans (not distressed, thank you!) I knew that I had to address our longing! She looked wonderful, by the way...

So let's look at this sweater with a handful (okay, seven) different colors...

Let's start with denim, and my re-creation of the outfit my Chic Sighting was wearing:

One of the great joys of a v-neck sweater is that you can wear it with something under it, and then 2 days later wear it on its own! That makes a ... View the Post

March 2021 – Six Scarves, 12 Months, 12 Outfits

March 1, 2021

Hurray! February is OVER....

Let's check back with our 6 heroines who are assembling wardrobes loosely along the guidelines of Start From Scratch, and trying to stick to color palettes suggested by 6 scarves.

The guidelines in Start From Scratch suggest finding a core outfit in the 2nd neutral in our wardrobes, as well as an accent top and scarf...

Starting here!

This heroine has neither grey pants, nor a black cardigan! And a tee shirt that almost matches her pink oxford will give her a chance to layer the 2 together. Filling in those gaps gives us something that's not really an outfit, but more a group of useful wardrobe additions:

It makes more sense when you see the 8 garments, plus ... View the Post

Start with Art: Abstracts by Tony Daley

February 26, 2021 The Sun is Out!

It's not going to be insanely warm at the gardens, but warm enough that she can take a couple of days to check on the bee hives...

So she decides that she's going to wear pretty pretty pretty colors, and pretend to be one of the flowers...

She dresses somewhat warmly for the trip...

She's not sure how long she's going to stay, nor how warm it will be, so she plans to pack an assortment of possibilities...

To start, she makes certain that she has her beige cardigan, shorts, and cropped pants. Her tan skirt is almost the same color, so she adds that...

Then a couple of tee shirts, a cardigan and her favorite floral top...

When she gets to the ... View the Post

Acessories! Adding Balance and Interest to Start with Art: Meadow by Mainie Jellett

February 24, 2021

This may or may NOT change your feelings about this wardrobe; I suspect that I'm going to revisit this at least twice! Maybe once use darker brown and olive to balance the red, and a second try to incorporate the mauve pink in place of the red...

This is where we started:

I already feel like the wheels are coming off - the red accessories that go so well with this outfit won't be worn with any other outfits except maybe an all camel ensemble...

This outfit screams "reading on the sofa for 5 hours" to me...

If you haven't had a haircut in a REALLY REALLY long time, a pretty hair clip might be smart...

The green puts our heroine in the mood for 4-leaf clovers, and who could blame ... View the Post

February 2021 Start with a Bracelet: The Confident Lynx

February 22, 2021 You Could Go By Yourself... She looked at her favorite bracelet - the Confident Lynx...

She's going to do this - she's been anticipating this Cathedral Tour weekend for ages, and she's not going to miss it just because nobody she knows wants to go too!

So she starts to plan...

It won't be bitter cold by the time of the tour, but she knows that she wants to dress rather warmly, because old stone buildings are never toasty...

Since she's going to be alone (well, there will of course be other people on the tour!), she wants to make sure that she can lift her own luggage and manage it without having to resort to the kindness of strangers! So she arranges a tidy black core of clothes, and ... View the Post

Start With Art: Meadow by Mainie Jellett

February 19, 2021 When Accent Colors Lead You Astray... She wanted to start with this painting, and who could blame her?

She is in the process of shifting her preferred neutral from navy to camel, and her accent colors from cool and bright to warm and muted - it's quite the project!

This painting is perfect for her... After some study, and some thinking, she chose these colors:

Her plan is to assemble her 21-piece wardrobe - Her Garde-Robe du Mois - this way:

yes, this is only 20 garments - she's going to toss in her camel dress, when it's clean!

Since her closet is sort of "betwixt and between" right now, she decides to start with pants; this is a pretty good idea for most of us, since these are the clothes ... View the Post

Start with a Scarf: Triangle Magic by Jessie Zhao New York

February 17, 2021

One of you has treated yourself! I think it's important to do that, from time to time...

(I splurged on a scarf too - I'll share a link at the end of this post...)

I'm pretty certain that our friend uses green as one of her accent colors, but I'm going to use denim blue instead - this scarf certainly gives you options!

As I've been inclined to do these days, I'm starting with a classic navy and white Common Wardrobe of 12 garments. When I talk about Common Wardrobes, I mean those classic, timeless garments that many of our wardrobes have in common...

With 12 garments in hand, anybody who wants to pull together a Garde-Robe du Mois (see Fiona Ferris for the explanation of this) just needs 9 more ... View the Post

Start with a Scarf: Echo Photo Floral Silk Square

February 15, 2021

Let's wallow in some flowers!

This has the potential to take black and white RIGHT into spring - at least in our hearts! What lovely colors:

Today's heroine assures me that her wardrobe is pretty classic black and white, so let's start with a 12-piece Common Wardrobe that will see her into a few warm days:

Now - the accent colors!

I had to splurge and show you this tee shirt, because I think the floral print is lovely...

Coral! Who wouldn't look at least reasonably good in this color? And the sleeveless top brings summer into the room, even if worn under a cardigan:

Okay, one may not be inclined to wear this cardigan every other day, but it is SO bright and fun for these ... View the Post

Stress Dressing Mini-Wardrobes for Cool Weather

February 12, 2021

We've looked back at the original Stress Dressing post, and quite a few of us realized that this might be worth revisiting in our wardrobes for this "dead of winter, middle of pandemic" situation...

I didn't include dresses this time - I think that the probability that one of us is going to need a dress isn't all that high! And since so many of us are still spending so much time at home, I didn't include a bag either...

My goals were warm, comfortable, somewhat versatile, and uncomplicated. Let's look!

Loosely speaking, this is a list of what I might look for when I build this for myself:

Even though we're home most of the time, there's still no guarantee that our wardrobes will be ... View the Post

Need an Accent Color to Get Through the Rest of the Winter?

February 10, 2021

This post is partly for me - I'm hankering for something in a different color than my usual!

I've got to be really careful not to buy something without a LOT of thought; my wardrobe has been 95+% black and white for decades, so busting out with a blue scarf and tee shirt would be a MAJOR change...

But I see that my favorite tee shirt is available in quite a few colors; what might I do?

More pink is always a possibility; I know that I love pink, and it goes well with all my black and white:

I love the way these 5 things look together, but I'm not sure that coral is a direction I should go...

Yellow? I think not, but it's so pretty and cheery...

Oddly enough, Beach Glass ... View the Post