Need an Autumn Inspiration? Start With a Sweater – Fair Isle from L.L.Bean

September 9, 2024

Oh, so many of you are ready to buy something fresh for the upcoming cooler seasons, and SO many of you are hesitating…

A question I receive a few days ago – “I love earth tones – all shades of brown – but does it make sense to add this sweater to my wardrobe?”

Well, let’s be honest – I love Fair Isle sweaters! All of the DNA tests assure me that I’m Scottish, Irish and French (of course!), so these sweaters are in my blood. And L.L.Bean does some lovely sweaters, that aren’t priced to the moon and back. (I recently saw a Fair Isle sweater that appealed, until I saw the $500+ price tag…)

And if our heroine has a closet of browns and ivories (as she assures me she does), this sweater would be very useful.

In order to give our heroine a feeling for how this sweater can slot into her wardrobe, I’m going to cobble together a few outfits in warm tones, add a few extra garments, and pull together a 13-piece wardrobe that’s almost foolproof!

Let’s start with an outfit that includes her new sweater:

A little more brown, and some boots!

How about some denim? It seems like almost all of us need denim… And I’m coveting these “barrel” cut jeans… I can’t explain why I love this cut, but I really do!

So our heroine has three pairs of pants, and three pairs of shoes… Just at this point, she could wear any of the three outfits, pack the other two, and be in pretty good shape for a while, especially if she has laundry available.

But let’s add four more things…

Two first layers, two second layers, except of course that lovely vicuna heather Donegal cashmere sweater doesn’t HAVE to have something worn under it…

Now she’s in a position to wear three garments, pack ten… I confess that I loved this wardrobe so much that this image sat on my laptop as the screensaver for hours!

Certainly some combinations from this wardrobe will appeal to you more than other, but I’m pretty certain that it’s impossible to put together a truly ugly outfit from these things! You might hate a plaid shirt under a Fair Isle sweater, but it’s not going to cause people to throw rotten produce your way…

For a heroine who already owns… maybe ten of these garments, adding a few new things can give her an autumn wardrobe that will see her through past Thanksgiving in good shape!

Many of us can manage just fine with a baker’s dozen pieces of clothing for quite a long while, don’t you think?

love,

Janice

p.s. Ten years ago, the wardrobe of the day was blue, grey, and burgundy. Leaf green was supposed to be included, but September 2014 was apparently not a big month for green…