cardigans Archives

Accenting Navy with Bright or Deep Colors

This is called: "I have NO IDEA what the day, or date, is this month!" Please understand that I will NOT have another post tomorrow morning!

August 13, 2023

Hi! Someone made a great point in Friday's comments, that I want to address. They pointed out that there are a LOT more ways to mix a neutral and an accent color than just "column of neutral + accent cardigan + accent scarf and shoes."

Of COURSE there are! But I've tried to keep these outfits as similar as possible, with the only variable in the accent color, so we can focus on the effect of the color and not be distracted by things like necklines and drapes and lengths and all of the other dozens of variables in clothing.

I'm always more than happy to approach these ... View the Post

Accenting Navy with Pastels

August 11, 2023

Okay, we're going to have THREE posts about navy, because I want to look into the pretty potential of pastels (death by alliteration!), as well as what might be interesting and useful in the world of bright accent colors...

Let's go!

I might have found a softer/lighter pink cardigan, but I really love the sleeves on this one! And it's just right with the scarf...

If you prefer a warmer kind of pink... Well, this is technically called Peachskin. Yes, all 1 word.

Yellow was hard! Really REALLY hard. Maybe as the weather cools down, and we have more sweaters available?

I don't wear pastels, but I could easily be tempted by mint green! I don't know what it is about this color...

Light blue ... View the Post

Accenting Navy with Other Neutrals

August 9, 2023

Ah, let's see what kinds of lovely ensembles we can pull together with this as our base:

I'm not going to interject a lot of remarks for this post, because (a) I don't wear navy anymore, and I'm more interested to hear what those of you who DO wear navy have to say, and (b) I'm dashing off to have someone poke a needle in my wrist, after which I shall NOT type for the rest of the day! I'd say I deserve a break after that, eh?

Editorial update: NO SHOT!!! And no more visits unless the pain dictates... Woo hoo!!!

First, an all-navy ensemble, accented with labradorite earrings and a lovely small scarf:

You don't wear scarves? A nice olive necklace will do the trick...

If you want a less "all dark" ... View the Post

Accenting Olive Green with Brights and Strong Colors

August 7, 2023

Ah, back to seeing the possibilities in olive green!

Please note that there were other colors that I wanted to include, but just couldn't find a cardigan that would do... I had to look for a shockingly long time to find a red cardigan! And there wasn't nearly as much pink in the world as one might believe, now in the Barbie times...

But we still have beautiful options!

Rust is my first thought with green; red is technically the compliment color to green (i.e. it is opposite to green in the color wheel), but I really feel like orange/rust is just a natural fit...

Turquoise! I love turquoise so much that I'm going to do another, brighter one below.

My thinking here is that if you're wearing an ... View the Post

How to Wear a Blue Dress – 10 Ideas

July 24, 2023

I heard from quite a few of you, asking if this dress could be worn with... well... navy, black, green and pink, so far!

So I decided to give this dress the attention it deserves, and see what the possibilities might be...

My gut instinct tells me that this dress will be great with any neutral, and with just about any other color that is of a similar intensity. Let's see!

Navy - of course! This would be a great dress to wear to a stuffy office environment, and then out for dinner:

I think this is a lovely combination - the green is soft, but equally saturated, so that it stands up to the blue:

If the weather is hot...

If autumn is approaching, and you feel like a darker color is the right ... View the Post

Part 2 August 2022: Six Scarves, 12 Months

August 3, 2022

Have any of you done enough shopping that you can see the trends for this autumn?

I've seen tons of clogs. Literally tons. I know that they're very comfortable for people who work in hospitals, so I would assume that everybody might find them comfortable... Maybe if you need shoes, they are worth trying?

And someone, somewhere, put together a million miles of smocked fabric! Not the traditional smocking, like we used to do on gingham fabrics, where you would join together certain squares in the print with stitching to create beautiful patterns...

Nope - this smocking is machine stitched fabric that is gathered with elastic thread. There's nothing inherently wrong with this fabric, except that you can't swing a ... View the Post

Part 1 August 2022: Six Scarves, 12 Months

August 1, 2022

We're going to have to do the "Six Scarves, 12 Months" posts in segments this month, because it's just THAT difficult... I hate not finishing in 1 post, but I have to admit when I can't finish in time!

This is a great lesson for how to handle shopping when everything in the marketplace seems to conspire against you.

In a "normal" year, I could easily expect to see piles of cashmere sweaters in 30 colors all OVER the retail world - but not this year...

Websites should be chock-full of cabled sweaters, and corduroy pants, and tweed blazers, and all of the traditional garments of autumn. But not this year!

It might be reluctance to stock merchandise that may not appeal - nobody's really sure how people are going ... View the Post

Starting with a Black Column (or a Grey Column!)

July 13, 2022 Self-Esteem She's among the many who have to be back in their office - 10 days a month... (who's going to be counting these days, eh?)

She has completely changed clothing sizes during the pandemic, and she's changed her attitude toward work. Since she's been saving her clothing budget since spring of 2020, she's going to be a little bit extravagant (okay, really extravagant!) and make a personal statement of confidence when she gets dressed!

So she's already reserved the best office available (the entire place is now running on a "hotel desk" system...), and she's going to start looking and acting like she should be in charge...

She's starting with 2 simple pieces of black clothing that are VERY comfortable. ... View the Post

Weekly Timeless Wardrobe #46: A Neutral Cardigan or Blazer

January 31, 2022

A blazer or a cardigan? Or a "sweater-blazer," which seems to be the best of both worlds? You get to choose, but I think many of us agree that a classic second layer is pretty important this time of year!

Why yes, these ARE the same pants and shoes as last Monday's post; this is about building a wardrobe, not starting from scratch every week!

If you were only going to have just ONE second layer garment, you could do worse than this:

If you've wanted to introduce some camel into your wardrobe, this is a great way to do it! You don't have to wear it right next to your face, you can brighten up the look with a scarf and earrings...

If you wear lots of shades of grey and struggle to find something to ... View the Post

January 2022: Six Scarves, 12 Months

January 5, 2022

Let's GO!!!

First up is black...

Last week we started with 5 essential garments (well, essential for most of us!):

As soon as I saw this "rust red" - I know that this was where I wanted to start! To me, this color is very close to the color of warmly brown leather... maybe brown earrings would have made sense here but I didn't see any that impressed me, so I opted for these timeless black ones!

These 6 additions to the original 5 garments give you something that can legitimately be called a wardrobe! It's not huge, but for a long weekend, this would serve you well:

You've now got at least a few outfits...

Next is our soft, warmly-colored wardrobe:

Since I couldn't find 5 beige ... View the Post

Weekly Timeless Wardrobe #33: A 2nd Layer

November 1, 2021

This was good timing - after being out for a couple of lunch dates last week, I was seriously thinking that my next "Chic Sighting" would be blazer-sweaters!

I'm curious - those of you who are back in your offices, or are back in business environments - are you seeing people more dressed up than before the pandemic? My limited view of what's going on in Chicago suggests that we are taking advantage of the chance to look a little bit nicer, and wear those lovely things that have been hanging in our closets for months (and months and months...).

I saw a LOT of this kind of look, when I was out last week. It was dressier than I was used to seeing - lapels do a great deal to elevate an outfit! And why not wear ... View the Post

Weekly Timeless Wardrobe #24 – A Lightweight 2nd Layer

August 16, 2021

Ah, let's continue to ponder what essentials we might want in our warm weather wardrobes!

Many of us are going back to our offices - reluctantly, I might add. If you're like most women, you find the office to be bitterly cold, and then when you walk outdoors you melt immediately! So a 2nd layer is essential to stay warm indoors, while something relatively light and cool underneath is important to be able to survive the commute, or the walk to lunch...

This might do the trick!

One of the many beauties of the cardigan above is that it could easily be worn through the winter with something heavier underneath...

This next cardigan, on the other hand, is pretty strictly a hot-weather garment:

When you ... View the Post