Start with Art Archives - Page 40 of 46

Start With Art: Bright Women in Front of the Hat Shop by August Macke

July 9, 2015 This painting is great - I want to revisit this one with a more fall/winter orientation. For warm weather, my first thought was that the shades of blue reminded me of denim and chambray, accented with that YELLOW, the rose, and some acid green (which I didn't address here, but might in the future!)

So this is my warm-weather color scheme:

Everyone is at the lake but you... Yes, everyone else went to the cabin last night. But you KNEW that you had to go into the office this morning - that client report wasn't going to write itself! But if you put your head down and WRITE, you can be out of the office by 2:00 or so - in time to get to the lake for ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Self-Portrait in a Green Bugatti by Tamara de Lempicka

July 8, 2015 Yesterday, after I worked on Camposanto, I was thinking about the inherent utility of a wardrobe that had a khaki and white core, and how virtually any accent color would work well with those 2 neutrals. And of course, I'm thinking about tossing black into the mix... So in the comments, someone mentions this MOST elegant and compelling painting!

White would also work beautifully here:

In the interest of showing how versatile a simple, solid core of clothing can be, I kept yesterday's Core in camel, or tan, or whatever you wish to name this color.

When looking for the black Core, I tried to find pieces that had some swish to them. Tamara has always looked like ... View the Post

Build a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Camposanto by J.M.W. Turner

July 7, 2015 To the seaside!!! Everyone told you that you couldn't have purple as your favorite color for your entire life - but YOU know better...

Did you have a favorite color as a child? I never really did, but I always wore my older sister's clothes, so it's maybe just as well that I didn't have strong feelings about it! love, Janice ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Sisyphus by Titian

July 6, 2015

Sometimes you feel like you work and work and don't really make any progress, or go anywhere... Seeing Sisyphus reminds me of business travel that's not really travel!

Your client is Milan is... amused... that there's a blizzard bearing down on Chicago. But not amused enough that they will let you off the hook for having the samples in the hands of the courier by Friday afternoon! This isn't work that can be phoned in - you have to cut fabric, assemble muslins, put together swatch cards and sample cards of the trimmings - your team has to be IN the office for the duration. What do you do? You get everybody into a conference room. Even though you all know full well that the blizzard might not ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Portrait de Jeune Fille by Marie Laurencin

July 3, 2015 I love this painting - I'm a big Marie Laurencin fan anyway. This girl's expression is so very much "I know what I'm doing, probably a whole lot better than you do..." I respect that kind of quiet confidence!

This color scheme is feminine without being frilly or lacy - I see the femininity here conveyed in soft lines, sheer fabrics, and a calm attitude. These are the colors of The Vivienne Files, too!

In honor of this young lady's calm assurance, I was thinking of this as one of those business trips where you're the only person with a clue. We know this kind of trip: You wrote the macro. Not ANYBODY at the home office - YOU. But now, they want you to COME to the home office ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: The Blue Pool by Augustus John

July 1, 2015 Wow...

A color scheme that just cries out for some cotton khaki, and some turquoise...

This felt to me like a quick weekend away to the lake - leaving the office early, and doing nothing more strenuous than maybe rowing a canoe... The prevailing feeling that I was looking for was outdoors, active, sunny and relaxed.

The jewelry looks great with your outfits, but isn't terribly expensive, so you can wear it without being obsessive about it. A little clutch is handy in case you dash into town for drinks or dinner.

If it's cool, you have your cardigan and trousers from work; if you want to be "dressy-ish", you have your culottes, and if you're going to get wet, ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Carnation Lily Lily Rose by John Singer Sargent

June 30, 2015 Wow! When I asked for paintings, you all came through with some beautiful suggestions... This John Singer Sargent is so lovely...

In the deepest shadows, I saw navy, although on another day, it could be deepest gray, or maybe something else - really good paintings are wonderful in the way they can have so many different aspects over time.

I'm embarking on a 4 by 4 that's particularly challenging: a casual wardrobe in soft and fluid navy and white. So VERY often, navy and white are crisp, and starched, and nicely pressed and snappy - which is pretty great. And I'm sure that at some point earlier in the fictional day, these lovely white dresses were immaculate and pristine, but NOT by this ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art Version 2: Flaming June by Sir Frederic Leighton

June 29, 2015 So how does the gorgeous, warm palette from last Saturday translate into a much more casual grouping? Beautifully!

In order to keep the feeling of softness and flow, I looked for fabrics like corduroy, which has both depth and softness, moleskin, which has a nice plush texture, and of course silk. Gathers and jacquard fabrics also give us a little bit of grace and detail... (note: I even chosen nail enamels with shimmer, which gives a sense of movement!)

When choosing items to go into this wardrobe, always ask yourself "yes, it goes, but does it have the requisite fluidity and movement that gives me my desired image?" There's lots of brown and orange in the world, but much of it is crisp or static - not right for ... View the Post

Building a Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with Art: Flaming June by Sir Frederic Leighton

July 27, 2015 Someone particularly special sent me this painting, with a request for a Start With Art - what a wonderful idea! These were the colors that I chose. While there's a ton more orange in this painting than anything else, only the rarest among us will be able to pull together any kind of a wardrobe, no matter how small, with mostly orange. So I gave the warm brown prominence...

I was really thinking about texture and flow here - draping was important!

Just enough to be able to get away for a long weekend - lots of emphasis on dining-out attire! And the budget was unlimited madness for this wardrobe - suede pants and a bank-breaking dress and sweater. But very reasonably priced ... View the Post

Start with Art: White Ship by John Singer Sargent

April 23, 2015 That time of year is fast approaching when the lucky ones among us get all kinds of great invitations for weekends! If you have friends with a lake house, you know what I mean - lots of time in the water - in a canoe, a kayak, or an inner tube! Chilly evenings, cooking out, laughing 'til your sides hurt... The last thing you want to worry about is what to pack!

Sargent's painting put me very much in the right mood for this scenario:

Maybe you're driving to the lake, taking the train and being met, or taking the Jitney, but under any circumstances, you want to look nice - casual, but still pretty, with attention to detail.

Two swimsuits might seem like overdoing it, but if ... View the Post

Start with Art: Version 2 Steamboat leaving Boulogne by Edouard Manet

April 1, 2015 I really love the combination of blue and grey! (I often consider including blue as an accent color in my wardrobe...) So I decided to look again at this painting, with an eye to warm weather. I brightened up the blue a little bit - Manet gives you a whole range of blue possibilities - and I equalized the proportions of the four colors:

I haven't built a Four by Four wardrobe for a while, so I thought this would be an interesting project. First up, the core dark neutral charcoal, in linen:

One of the reasons I wanted to do a summer leisure wardrobe - I found this gorgeous blue at L.L.Bean. A perfect secondary color!

The Expansion Four is usually four tops of some sort, since tops ... View the Post

Start with Art: Steamboat leaving Boulogne by Edouard Manet

March 30, 2015 To whomever requested this painting as the basis for a wardrobe - a big thank you!

From time to time, I hear from women who need only the smallest of work wardrobes, because they work as temps - employees who go into an office for a very brief period of time. A wardrobe for this kind of work needs to be very conservative and very neutral; you don't really want to make any kind of a "mark" on the organization except for the excellence of your work! I temped at a few times in the past - sometimes only for a day, and sometimes for as long as 2 or 3 weeks. This is the kind of work that allows you to have an extremely small work wardrobe, and to thus dedicate your income to ... View the Post