Vivienne files

June 9, 2020 Watching lots of people wandering about with backpacks, this last weekend, I was wondering what everybody was carrying! I know, water bottles, spare phone batteries etc. but I wondered if they had any clothes with them… And that got me to thinking about what you want to have handy if you’re going […]

June 28, 2013 White shirts are an absolute classic, right? Everybody should own one. Everybody should pull it out and wear it whenever they’re in doubt about what to wear. Uhhhh – I don’t quite agree. Yes, there are times and places where a white shirt is the most appropriate choice […]

April 15, 2024 So once you’ve studied the Pantone Colors from London Fashion Week, (found here and here), you have to decide if you like the colors, if you would be flattered by wearing any of them, and how they might look with the neutral clothes you normally wear. I can’t answer the first two […]

December 9, 2024 I’m leaving for Paris on Wednesday unless something happens to hold me back. I haven’t been to Paris in five years, which for me feels like half my life… I plan to have posts here for you while I’m away, but bear in mind that I won’t be able to fix stupid […]

June 22, 2022 By this time of year, most of us should be easily able to whittle down our warm-weather wardrobe to a tidy 33 pieces. While this is NOT what Courtney Carver suggests for her Project 333, I’m pretty confident that she wouldn’t be too upset with us starting at this point. So long […]

September 21, 2022 As we have come to expect, Pantone “discovered” 10 “new” fashion colors from the London Spring/Summer 2022/23 Fashion Week. Bizarrely enough, they seem to have arranged them almost like a (weird) rainbow! So to look at these colors as suggestions for wardrobe accents, I’m going to take the first 5 colors and […]

July 22, 2020 Well THAT went well… Yesterday, our heroine was caught off guard when she realized that she needed to pack and leave for the weekend in 5 minutes! She managed, using this painting as her color inspiration; she felt that the swirling and diffusion in this painting accurately represented the state of her […]

June 11, 2014 Floral garments are everywhere this summer – any sort of skirt, blouse, tee shirt or dress your heart may desire is out there somewhere… But I receive emails every day asking how a floral garment can be incorporated into The Common Capsule Wardrobe. Let’s look at this problem in some […]

July 18, 2016 It seems that there are some among us who are struggling to pull together what they want to pack. This isn’t particularly surprising – travel is stressful enough, and the unknown factors of weather and activities can throw almost anyone into a small panic. So I’m going to approach the “1 […]