The Vivienne Files

Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature

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Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: The Sea Seen from the Heights of Dieppe by Eugene Delacroix

February 26, 2016   What a gorgeous image, especially in late February, in Chicago!  

As much as this painting suggests a wardrobe with a LOT of gold and yellow, I'm going to have to work around that, because those clothes are NOT easy to find! So I'm going to take advantage of the boat in the foreground, the beige clouds and distant sea, and the glimpses of blue sky. Some mother-of-pearl jewelry would be logical, no?

 

  They Met on The Internet Not that it's unusual to date someone you met online - much the contrary. Many of her nieces and nephews dated people they met on the internet, and she even knew of a couple of very successful marriages that started there. It's just not something she ever ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe One Piece at a Time, 3 Accent Colors with Navy and Beige

February 25, 2016   If you want to include 3 accent colors in your wardrobe, this is for you!  

Please note that, although there are a lot of accent colors here, I've tried to keep them all in the same range of intensity and saturation, so that they will all "behave" in the same way when paired with neutrals. It's a hard concept to explain, but I find that it makes a lot of different in keeping things versatile and harmonious.(yes, there are 4 accent colors shown here, in keeping with the original request. I didn't have a lot of luck finding the raspberry color...)

Many of these steps will look painfully familiar, as I build a base of neutral colors upon which you can use accents as the embellishment. I know I ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe One Piece at a Time in Navy, Beige Turquoise and Yellow

I'm going to start tackling the various color schemes you all requested - what a great, long, and wide-ranging list!Today I'm going to do the first of a couple using navy and beige...

First up, the favorite outfit: (for what it's worth, the most frequently mentioned accent color from you all was turquoise).

Tee – Lands’ End; cardigan – L.L.Bean; pants – Jil Sander Navy  

This request was for accents of both turquoise and yellow, so the color scheme looks like this:

Tee – Lands’ End; cardigan – L.L.Bean; pants – Jil Sander Navy  

From here, for a while, this will look very familiar. I am a strong believer in the absolute necessity of investing in a core of neutral garments before you start going crazy with a ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe One Piece at a Time in Navy, Beige and Poppy

February 22, 2016  

A requested color scheme - this looks so "Coast of Maine in the summer" to me! Maybe because L.L.Bean is well-represented here. I don't necessarily think that everybody is going to buy things from them, but their photographs of simple, classic clothing are among the very best I can find for our illustrative purposes. 

Starting outfit:

Blouse - Uniqlo; cardigan – L.L.Bean; pants – Jil Sander Navy  

Although this outfit doesn't include beige, it's been determined by the requester that beige will be the other neutral color, so our color scheme is thus:

 

Blouse - Uniqlo; cardigan – L.L.Bean; pants – Jil Sander Navy  

This time, I decided to get that neutral tee ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe One Piece at a Time in beige, pink and soft green

February 20, 2016  

I'd be happy to do more of these - suggest colors, and I'll give it a try! Today, we're going into warm colors, starting with a favorite outfit of a woman who wears and loves warm, soft colors:

I can see the appeal of a comfy tee, broken-in chinos, and a cuddly cashmere cardigan!Although her "seed" outfit doesn't include green, she makes the deliberate choice to include it in her wardrobe plan:

I may have beaten this poor horse to pieces by now, but a great place to start to expand a wardrobe is to find pieces that are different colored versions of your current favorites. In this shopper's (now nicknamed TS) plan, a green tee shirt, just like her blush one, is a simple and foolproof place to ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with a Scarf: Version 2 Hydrangea Haze by Ted Baker London

February 8, 2016  

I was working on a casual version of this when everybody started asking for a casual version... Sometimes we all think very much alike!

Hydrangea Haze scarf – Ted Baker London  

I swapped out the pinks for purple and blue - a great color combination. I also softened the grey from the first version of this wardrobe (revisit it here) for a pure white.And then I found that these 2 accents were VERY difficult to find... at least in items that meet my many requirements!

On Campus?!?!? Yes, of course I'd like to go visit - we're talking about my favorite freshman in the whole wide world. But we're staying ON CAMPUS for Parents and Grandparents Weekend!

  Sleeping in a dorm. Eating in ... View the Post

How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe Starting with Art: a Buddhist Kesa

This was a little bit more challenging than I expected it to be! Finding these colors was surprisingly difficult... 

It's just a small exhibit - maybe 28 items? - but if you have a chance to come to Chicago, to the Art Institute, before February 14th, you won't be disappointed. The exhibit displays only a few of their collection of Buddhist kesa, but they're beautiful. And because this is a "minor" exhibit, in the basement area of the museum, it's usually quiet, and uncrowded (bordering on empty). Very restful, very inspiring, very wonderful way to spend an hour!

I considered using the burgundy as the first neutral, but I think that this olive/sage green is more readily available through more of the year. This kind of color is a ... View the Post

Choosing an Accent Color for Brown

As I mentioned yesterday, I want to look at the possibility of different accent colors for a few neutrals - today let's think about dark chocolate brown!

 

First up, the core four garments upon which we will build these outfits. Having these 4 pieces can make your life so much easier....

Ryder pants – J.Crew; cashmere turtleneck – J. Crew;  jeans – Austin Reed; ribbed crewneck - Michael Kors Collection  

I took the same approach, starting with two neutral colors that could serve as accents in a mainly brown wardrobe. If you were building a wardrobe with more than 1 neutral, you would have lots of options like this:

Olive vest – L.L.Bean; green earrings – GFG Jewellery; scarf – L.L.Bean; ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse

November 11, 2015

If I ever catch any of you pining away like this, I'll give you a very stern talking-to, and then a hug...

But it's so beautiful, in that lush, opulently colored way that the Pre-Raphaelites made so appealing. I have, in fact, another color scheme in mind for this same painting, so don't wander away in the next week or two...

Recently, I've been asked about the nuts and bolts of putting together a Whatever's Clean Wardrobe - where to start, and how to choose what to include. I'll try to explain my thought process through this one, in the hope that I can clarify how you can easily do this yourself when you're packing, or just when you want to build a small collection of clothes that will see you through your ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Dantis Amor by Rossetti – Step 2

October 29, 2015   Okay, now that we have our color scheme, we'll need to start picking clothes!  

As always, I'm going to start with the neutrals, since they're the really essential foundation garments for your 4 by 4 wardrobe. First up, the elusive camel, or vicuna, or caramel, or walnut (although I think of walnut as darker), or amber, or whatever else this color might be called. This is one of the essential qualities that you have to bring to the clothing search - a real flexibility in how you describe what you want! And look outside your normal comfort zone - Google images and see what comes up. 

This turned out to be a tremendously tough color to find, unless you were interested in spending four ... View the Post

Down Vests: Eight Outfits

October 27, 2015  

For us in Chicago, it's that time of year when you haven't a clue how to dress for the weather - absolutely cold mornings turn into beautiful afternoons.. A down vest can be a useful, and fairly modestly priced, option.I've seen a few really well styled outfits, so I copied them as best I could, and then I built on the core ideas to show a few additional options. Please note that these vests are pretty trim in cut, and have a very clever elastic inset at the waist, in the back. There are not your mother's puffer vests! (although I still wear mine...)

This was the outfit that got me started thinking about vests; what really elevated the elegance factor here was the cashmere tee, the gorgeous scarf, and the ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with a Scarf: Pigs on the Wing by wrq.e.d. Version 2

October 22, 2015  

While the first colors that I saw in the scarf were greys and black, there's definitely enough beige and brown here to work with; maybe I see black and grey first because that's my personal capsule wardrobe focus?But this time, this is the color scheme. I like giving myself the full range of the blues and browns as options, I think it works well with the scarf, and makes the blending of different shades of one color possible. While there are a few colors that need to be matched pretty closely, others can blend all over the place and work well - I think brown is one of those!

I didn't mention this, but the border of this scarf reads:

"my song was out of tune, my voice was cracked, but at least no chorus ... View the Post