The choice of a column of color in the dark neutral (olive) and a cardigan in the light neutral (beige) was a versatile start to Janice's olive & beige wardrobe. It's interesting...the inspiration scarves Janice and I used for the olive & beige are yellow/orange floral prints against a colorful background; in her case, shades of red, pink, and orange, and in my case, this stunning azure blue. The olive color appears in the leaves and is a very small proportion of the color of the scarf. If these palette images were pie charts instead, the olive section might take up half as much space as one of the accent colors in my palette. Translating an inspiration image--be it a scarf, painting, nature photograph, what have you--into a color palette with a sense of how prevalent the different colors will be in the wardrobe is an art. Let's see how the January Kiwi wardrobe gets started.
Like Janice, I started with a pair of olive pants; mine are a pair of classic cotton chinos. (You might notice that these are unusually expensive at about $45 compared to most of the garments I have shown thus far. I had returned some online purchases to the Lands End store and had credits to use for other purchases. These pants caught my eye, and when I liked how they looked on, and considered how versatile they would be, I decided I would wear them often/long enough to get a reasonable cost per wear even at that price. I have not been disappointed with this decision.) Of course every wardrobe is getting a copy of the mixed metal bracelet. A pair of olive faux tortoiseshell earrings, our inspiration scarf, and olive suede ankle boots (a recent purchase that is already proving its worth) are accompanying accessories.
Olive pants - Lands End - 22W - $44.59 - 9/2019
Gold/silver chunky stretch bracelet - CJ Banks - $9.99 - 12/2020
Olive/black tortoiseshell earrings - Loft - $5.99 - 7/2020
Azure blue/pink floral scarf - Loft - $6.00 - 5/2020
Olive suede ankle boots - So/Kohls - $16.99 - 11/2020
I completed an olive winter trio with this olive and ivory striped sweater and an olive sweater vest. That vest is quite unusual, isn't it? It's a sweater vest that is fashioned like a hoodie. Not a piece that I had on my wish list exactly. I had been looking for an olive vest for winter, and expected to eventually settle on a quilted/puffy style, but when I came across this one, it seemed fun and different. At first, I wore it with long-sleeved Ts, which worked great, but for Minnesota winter, you really want to be able to layer your vest over sweater. And I wasn't sure whether it would be too weird to wear it that way. Sweater over sweater? (I've had the same conundrum with cardigan over sweater, but during the pandemic winter, I have seen bloggers doing that.) Eventually, I was like, OK, maybe this is a strange thing to do but it's cold so I'm doing it! I wore this sweater/vest combination below and it looked just fine. I'm not sure if it would be odd to wear with a very thick sweater, but with a relatively fine gauge sweater like this one, sweater vest over sweater works for me. I also added two scarves with green and olive in the print to go with the sweater/vest combination.
Olive/ivory striped pullover sweater - CJ Banks - 3X - $10.54 - 7/2020
Olive/pink/lime floral scarf - thrifted, ThredUp - $3.59 - 5/2020
Olive marl sweater vest - thrifted, Venezia Jeans/ThredUp - 22-24 - $15.72 - 8/2020
Ivory/black/pink/mustard striped scarf - CJ Banks - $6.32 - 7/2020
This grouping of a cream top, light red cardigan, plaid scarf, and tan ombré scarf start to bring in the black neutral and the red accent color from the palette while adding to beige neutral introduced above. I think this is my first all-thrifted grouping so far in the project!
Cream lace-front long-sleeved T - thrifted, CJ Banks/Goodwill - 2X - $6.99 - 12/2018
Red/black/olive plaid scarf - thrifted, ThredUp - $3.59 - 5/2020
Light red cardigan - thrifted, Lands End/Goodwill - 2X - $5.24 - 2/2018
Dark tan/cream scarf with gold pendant - thrifted, ThredUp - $2.99 - 5/2020
We have a lot of colors in the mix already in the Kiwi wardrobe. Let's see how well that translates into outfits for her Sally to wear. Right off the bat, Outfit #1 seems very Sally to me with its mix of colors (note: all 3 garments are different colors; no column of color, "suit," or twin set to be seen), mix of textures, and the inclusion of a bright print scarf.
Outfit #2 features this unexpectedly changeable scarf. The plaid pattern--woven from threads of orange, pink, red, green, blue, and black--looks quite different depending on how the scarf is tied and arranged. I have it laid out here to look maximally dramatic with the bright red and the dark green/black areas equally on display.
Here is a close up of that plaid so you can see what I mean. It's rather fascinating to look at.
Outfit #3 is a somewhat rare bird in my world--an all-neutral outfit. The variety in textures and the ooh-shiny in the accessories keep it from being boring.
Outfit #4 is that old Sally standby: the striped top and floral scarf combination. I find this to be one of the easiest print mix top/scarf options to do; as long as the scarf contains the colors of the top, the two pieces relate well to each other and the combination looks great. And of course I am happy to have the scarf add some color to the otherwise neutral outfit.
Outfit #5 is yet more evidence of how well I stocked the Kiwi closet with neutrals (which is the general approach taken by a lot of people building capsule wardrobes). On a day Kiwi's Sally wants to be comfortable, inconspicuous, but still low-key awesome, it's a good choice. Luckily, olive and cream/ivory/white is a Sally favorite neutral combination, so she should be able to work this as she waits for more accent colors to appear later on.
Being well set up with neutrals in the first month of the capsule doesn't make for the most eye-catching and dramatic outfits in the world, but it does make mixing-and-matching among a limited number of items easy to do.
For the seasonal wardrobe matrix, recall that in each season, for each color category, I can mark what has been added each month:
x = solid piece
T = tonal piece (i.e., tonally works with this color though it is a different color)
O = ombré piece
P = print piece (not ombré)
Do you gravitate toward neutrals or accent colors?
In my next post, we will look at the January additions for our fifth wardrobe: #5 Brown & Black, Nelly. This palette feels novel and challenging with a set of jewel tone accent colors paired with the not-very-common black and brown neutral base. And even though I'm the one who put it together, so none of this should be a surprise, I am still curious how it will look!