Outfits
One denim shirt, five outfits
Five ways to wear a single denim shirt: over a dress, with black jeans, tucked into a skirt, open as a jacket and knotted at the waist, plus wash and fit tips.
Five ways to wear a single denim shirt: over a dress, with black jeans, tucked into a skirt, open as a jacket and knotted at the waist, plus wash and fit tips.
How to combine colours in an outfit: neutrals, tonal dressing, complementary and analogous colours, and the one-accent rule, with easy combinations.
How cotton, linen, wool, silk and cashmere feel and behave, what viscose and lyocell are, and how to care for each fibre so clothes last.
The details that make a good trench coat, how to choose fit, colour and fabric, and outfit ideas for wearing it from spring to autumn.
How to clean, condition and polish leather shoes and boots, dry them after rain, use shoe trees and know when to take them to a cobbler.
How to match frame shapes to round, oval, square and heart-shaped faces, plus what UV400, CE marking and filter categories mean on sunglasses.
Easy knots for long scarves, square silk scarves and skinny ones, plus how fabric and size change the look, and how to wear a scarf beyond the neck.
Washtub, triangle, square, iron and circle: a clear guide to the care symbols on European clothing labels, including what the dots and bars mean.
A step-by-step guide to sewing on a button that stays put: tools, thread, making a thread shank, four-hole patterns, shank buttons and coat buttons.
Clean before storing, choose boxes or bags, protect knits from moths and damp, and use the seasonal swap to edit your wardrobe.
Style is rarely about the next thing to buy. Most good outfits come from pieces already hanging in the wardrobe, put together with a little more intention: a denim shirt worn open over a dress instead of buttoned up, a pair of sneakers that changes the mood of a skirt, one piece of jewellery chosen instead of five. Fashion En Vie is a style site built around that idea. We write outfit formulas you can copy tomorrow morning, guides to the shoes and accessories that are worth the money, small do-it-yourself projects for an evening at home, and nail art and beauty routines that need no salon and no shelf of products.
An outfit formula is a combination that works again and again, whatever the exact pieces. A shirt layered over a simple dress. Black, white and grey worn head to toe, with texture doing the work that colour usually does. A chunky knit, an oversized coat and boots you can actually walk in once the weather turns. We break these formulas down so you can rebuild them with what you own.
Start with five ways to wear a denim shirt, the most versatile shirt there is, and with a playful example of the same idea: floral high-top wedges with a denim shirt and a black dress. If you like a calmer palette, our guide to a black, white and grey capsule wardrobe shows how far a handful of neutral pieces can go. For colder months, read our notes on autumn layering with knits and boots, and when the calendar fills with parties, our ideas for New Year’s Eve outfits without a new dress.
Accessories are where a small budget goes furthest, and also where it is easiest to waste money. We look at pieces with staying power. High-top sneakers, including the hidden-wedge version that took over the early 2010s, and how to wear them now. Classic white sneakers, with a cleaning routine that keeps them white. Stacking rings and above-the-knuckle rings, and how to balance them across two hands. Fine gold jewellery layered with restraint, with a guide to chain lengths and the difference between solid, vermeil and plated. And because a good bag can last a decade, how to choose a leather bag by looking at the leather, the stitching and the hardware rather than the logo.
Some of the most satisfying additions to a wardrobe or a room are the ones you make yourself. Our DIY projects ask for little more than scissors, glue and an evening. Build a mood board above your desk to keep track of colours, textures and outfits that inspire you, and to see your own taste more clearly. Give a tired pair of jeans a fresh hem, raw, folded or released. Or braid a leather cord bracelet that takes twenty minutes and looks like it came from a shop.
Nail art does not need professional tools. A roll of tape is enough for geometric nails with clean lines and negative space, and a dotting tool, or even the round end of a hairpin, opens up polka dots, gradients and tiny triangles in our guide to dotting-tool nail art. On the skincare side, we stay deliberately modest: a simple routine of cleansing, moisturising and daily sun protection, with sensible advice on adding anything else slowly and patch-testing first.
The name Fashion En Vie mixes English and French the way people in Belgium often do, and our taste owes something to the country’s fashion culture: the dark, precise minimalism long associated with Antwerp, the habit of buying fewer, better things, and a healthy distrust of trends that last one season. You will find that spirit throughout the site, even when we write about floral wedges.
Fashion En Vie is written by a small editorial team and signed collectively as “The Fashion En Vie editors”. We do not publish sponsored posts or paid mentions, we do not accept free products in exchange for coverage, and we do not run reader reviews. When a brand appears in an article, it is as a well-known example, nothing more. Fashion En Vie is an independent site and has no connection with anyone who used this domain name before. You can read more on our about page.
Outfit formulas, accessories that last, small DIY projects and simple beauty, written for real wardrobes
Outfits