Style Imitating Art outfits

Bonsoir!

Hope all is going well with you!

I really like this blog challenge as it is educational as well as creative!  The premise is that Salazar, Jen or Erin will post a picture of a piece of artwork (this can be painting, sketch, sculpture, installation) fortnightly and then you have a week to come up with an outfit or a flat lay of clothes that is inspired by that painting- you can be as loose or literal as you feel inspired to be.

Here's two weeks worth.

Salazar selected this painting 3 weeks ago:

John Singer Sargent’s “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose”.

This is so pretty! I love the flowers, the frills and light colours.

Here's the outfit I put together.

I choose the Miss Patina blouse to represent the light colours of the girls' dresses and particularly my collar was a nod to the frilly colours of the girls.  The skirt (from TK Maxx I think) represented the roses and the floral element - although I have a white dress with pale roses on, I wanted to choose the darker shades of the skirt to represent the time of day in the painting. The River Island belt, which is made up of fabric flowers was also acknowledgement of the importance of the florals. If you click the link on Salazar's name, you can see how the others interpreted it.

Jen is in charge of this week's picture:

Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s “A Young Girl Reading“

I love the brushstrokes of this and the colours.  Unfortunately, I left it till a bit last minute to interpret this one so the time of day was awful for photographing.

I wore my mustard White Stuff cardie (present from J and WOMOTM) as a nod to her yellow dress and the white lacy tunic  (local shop) as a nod to her ruffled blouse. I had the perfect ruffle-necked blouse but couldn't find it.

Jen will post everyone's outfits tomorrow at the link above.

If you'd like a creative challenge, why not join in next time.  It's very informal and everyone is welcome- men included! 

Hope you are well.

xx

BEDM 12 - It's a question of WHO?

I'm back... and it's about Time!
I've switched my BEDM topics so Thursday's one is today  (Fashion, style or Beauty- tenuous) and vica-versa as TARDIS Tuesday must stay!

I was super excited to reach this week's TARDIS Tuesday as I received a wonderful present through the post.

Dear Ang, at Tracing Rainbows saw my allusion in a previous TARDIS Tuesday post to wanting question marks embroidered on my lapels like Peter Davidson's 5th Doctor (Who) and offered to embroider them for me on her super whizzy embroidery machine!  I excitedly posted my white concert shirt I have had since I was 14 off to her and she embroidered it with red question marks AND added red to the collar.

You can see it from various angles! I am SO delighted with it- SO many TARDIS Tuesday possibilities.
When I started putting this outfit together, I wanted something coherent and not TOO costumey as I was going to wear it to school BUT I wanted something bold.

Image borrowed from Tansyrr.com Yay, a blogger I follow!

Thus, I took 6th Doctor, Colin Baker, who also had question marks on his lapels, as my inspiration.  I know I don't look like him, but the longer coat with red emphasis, plus the lapels; stripy, albeit blue stripy trousers and a loud-patterned waistcoat (tank) .

There are many references I DON'T have in here, like the cat brooch, rainbow styling (darn it, should have included my rainbow umbrella!), bright coloured spats on shoes, cat brooch, polka dot neck-tie, louder stripy trousers,  checkered and patterned clashes, pocket chains but that's the beauty of this TARDIS Tuesday milarkey- I have years to perfect, refine, alter, change or embellish an outfit once I've exhausted original ideas!

Only one staff member guessed what the lapels were about but the children loved the tank and the question marks.  And that, my dear friends, for me, is enough success!

Outfit details:
Shirt- Racing Green, 20 years ago, lapels embroidered by Ang Almond.
Trousers-Primark ancient
Spotty Tanktop -  H&M via Char's Blog clothes sale
Red trench- Primark via Charity shop.
Shoes- Clarks

• With HUGE thanks to Ang for her wonderful embroidery (hmmm, wonder if that machine does fairisle-style question marks too..... ;-)   ) 
• A nod to my illustrious leader, Maricel over at TARDIS Tuesday headquarters
• A nod to Creative Mondays guru- Claire Justine
• A look at all of you!  If you have something British blue or perhaps Doctor Who inspired, head over to Maricel and link up.  Sometimes there is a little crowd of us WHO are inspired and sometimes, it's me and some random linkers who don't allude to DW or TT in their posts at all!  But still, it's nice to link up there together!  And if you wear black opaque tights, a short dress from Topshop, chances are you might look like Clara Oswald from DW, wear blue and you can be TARDIS blue. Or be random fangirl tenuous Cosplay like me! But I'd love to see you over there!

xxx






Thursday's  BEDM post is supposed to be linked to Beauty Fashion or Style- so that'll be neither!!

But that's not cricket!

I haven't done a vintage Doctor cosplay for TARDIS Tuesday so I thought I'd give it a go. Back in the day when Melanie, Folly Bird inspired me to do Doctor Who outfit inspiration, I only managed to do Peter Davidson and Tom Baker. I planned Peter Davidson but in some fit of madness, I got rid of my large stripy trousers (just like his). I'd had them made in Indonesia. What was I thinking?!!? (I think I was thinking, "I haven't worn these, they're too hard to style- need to get rid of them,")


Here's my 5th Doctor interpretation.

Image borrowed from Cloud costumes here 

You can see the original here.  Obviously, the piece that is most associated with that Doctor is the cricket jumper (not too obvious in this picture).  I have had this jumper for a good 5 years at least and yes, the prime reason I bought it is because it reminded me of Doctor Who. When I went to Panopticon in 1996, I went in my friend Caroline's Cricket jumper so I've wanted one for a long time...

Decided to accentuate the red with the skirt instead of trousers. I decided not to wear light or nude tights as it is winter but added white brogues to mimic the Doctor's.  Thrifted Coast coat of long-standing mimics the shape and colours if not the actual design.

Secret geeky details.  I added Accessorize Question mark earrings as a nod to the Doctor's lapels.

Finally, I added this heart necklace. Nothing to do with Who but I've wanted one like this for ages and it is Valentines week!

Linking to Maricel at TARDIS Tuesday and Creative Mondays with Claire Justine

I water the shrubs only when dressed in a white lacy petticoat

Berthe Morisot
Young woman watering a shrub

A beautiful painting was chosen by Salazar of this young women watering a shrub. I could imagine doing a full-on summer recreation of this but alas, we are in the bleak mid winter.

Taking inspiration from the young gardener's attire, I wore this charity-shopped Select blouse with its white wafty neckline and black bow-detail and paired it with a white lacy jumper worn underneath for warmth (it being cold).  Taking inspiration from the muted greens of the garden, I teamed it with the charity-shopped vintage Aquascutum skirt, black tights and Clarks dove-grey leather shoes (great as they are elasticated so easy to put on in fearful hurry and comfy too)

To top it off, I added this watering can charm to my necklace and added my charityshopped green earrings. All in all, though not my usual sillhouette (I don't really do fitted skirts),it was nice to wear something different.


OOOh, I hit 100,000 page views today! I know this is titchy, but I am not visible in Googlesearch engines (my settings) and I don't really do any other social media promotion so this is kind of cool!!!
xx

I'm an extra in the next Tim Burton movie...

Since Share in Style this week is celebrating Black and White with Mis Papelicos, I donned this ensemble on Sunday for my niece's 5th birthday.  CBC's words upon seeing it were something along the lines of, "So are you auditioning for the next Tim Burton movie?".  Ha, rude boy!! I get what he means though!

My Mum and I sneaked upstairs at the party to take these. Sadly, her emailed photos from the iPhone were all weird and small and fuzzy so I couldn't get them any bigger but the weird shadowy quality contributes to the sinister Burtonesque feel!

I donned this Tu at Sainsbury's dress along with a cotton polo-neck, Alex Munroe bee necklace, black patterned tights and Clarks black patent shoes and it is a really comfortable ensemble.

No jokes or pervy comments about this one, there's just some leg on show,  but my Mum said it was funny, the pre-shoot "MUM, not yet!" shot, and I should post it!

Close up of shoes....


Not much to say today.  The party was great fun, I enjoyed it and it was unusual that I had both sides of my family together parents and step-parents and step-grandparents, niece, sisters both, plus CBC.  It was super to be able to meet up and celebrate the occasion together.

Alas, back to school tomorrow- I've been on the go all weekend, so feels a bit too premature to be returning....

Blessings to all.

xx
Lizzie- Mmmm, I am with you on the milkshake thing- but TOO much milkshake? Seriously? I liked your opinions on Doctor Who too.  Wish I could comment on your blog but it's the Google+ thing!

Linking to Share in Style with Sacramento





 Visible Monday also with Patti

Creative Mondays also

SIA French lady in electric blue

In the last Style imitating art with Salazar at 14 shades of grey, we were looking at Egon Schiele’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer”:

My first thoughts were that I loved the line drawing and simple colour of this- the image was simple and pretty without being over the top.  
Though I could have gone with a similar blouse, I decided to work with the colours and wore the Monsoon dress I wore for IM Monday recently with the electric blue peep-toe shoes and add the electric blue pashmina I found in a charity shop with a red bracelet to show the pop of colour her lips provide.

Keep it simple, keep it simple.

xx

Don't you step on my blue suede shoes!

Firstly, I would like to know if all those hats belong to her?  Or is she in a hat boutique? And is that a horse hoof in the background? Why is there a horse in the room? Anyway, onto the main affair. I really liked the look of the Two Birds inspiration this week- lovely shade of blue and white and of course a nice hat and instantly knew I had items I could use to recreate this. Both are also items I don't wear very often thus making the endeavour even more profitable/noble (so noble am I- in the rescuing of unloved articles).  The hat,well that is neither here no there- it is black and white patterned but always looks grey in pictures.



Irritating that the light in the garden was really hard to get the colours and textures of this outfit right.

I'll tell you why I don't wear the top very often.  Look at the ruffle- that is a PAIN to iron and we all know I don't like doing ironing.  I remember buying this in Oasis in 2002- very excited I was because it was cheap in the sale. Then I disappeared off to Bali for the year, having not worn it. When I came back, I went off to Music camp and ended up wearing this top for some musical we did where we had to do some sort of Latin dance and I thought ruffles were suitable (Hmmm, Prince Charming more like) and wore it with a lurid turquoise floral sarong.

The dress (for it is a dress) was from Monsoon's Fusion range and was also exciting because I love a good white frock and it was 70% off.  But it has ties at the top for straps and I don't always get it right when tying it plus it doesn't lie well with bra straps (sorry TMI) and I don't like strapless with white! Plus, it always looks creased.

Ha, here you can see the detail on the hat- it is not grey! Oooh, and an Oasis necklace I've had since about 2000, which I TOTALLY copied my friend Zoe in buying (she had it in pink!)

You can see the floral embroidery detail here (and creases).  Please also note the toe-nail polish which matches the lady in the inspiration picture's blue- I am nothing if not a slave to detail ;-)

And yes, as aforementioned, kindly do not step on my blue suede shoes, they are peep-toes and it would surely hurt. Thank you for your concern.*

xxx



*Doesn't quite have the smash-hit feel to it now, does it?!



As well as the lovely Two Birds, I am linking up to Visible Monday with fabulous Patti.

The sea and the almost wedding dress

I really love this picture! It belongs to Jen, who is one of the curators of the Style imitating art blog-challenge. It is a serigraph (?) print entitled 'The sea', printed in 1976 by St Louis-based printmaker, Richard Schallert.  Any sort of seascape is my cup of tea. I have some underlying obsession with the sea. Some day soon, I must get my sea picture framed. It was painted by my friend, Philippino artist Thomas Daquoiag, who gave it to me when we said goodbye after our year studying in Bali and cemented a love of acrylic paints in me. I'd never realised what they were before that.

I knew immediately that this M&S skirt was perfect for the challenge- it has all shades of stripey blues and the weird-piecing and sort of fishtail was appropriate (shame I couldn't be bothered to iron it- it's a PAIN to iron!) and teamed it with the necklace which is made of plastic glass-looking beads in the same shades, linked by black cord.   The top half challenged me a bit. I really don't do beige very much (apart from some lovely silk trousers- oooh totally forgot those!) and my yellow is restricted to that mustard blouse and this yellow broderie anglaise dress from Topshop (thrifted and worn on here recently). So I tucked it in to form a top.  Don't look too close, it looks decidedly dodgy up close- having an empire-line doesn't go well with a normal waisted skirt and there's a whole dress stuffed inside the skirt- the hands are in front for a reason!  Still, I quite liked the effect of the items together! Loving those roses too- thanks neighbour - soon, I am going to totally lop them off and stick them in a vase!


I also have another Style imitating art to catch up on.  The last one, curated by Salazar, was a great fun challenge as she just asked us to pick an example of the floating paper sculptures of Peter Genternaar from the Netherlands,  and everybody picked her favourite piece to interpret.  They're made of paper pulp with bamboo ribs.
I was immediately struck by the balletic grace of these artworks-they seemed to billow like they jeted across the air like a primadonna, just about to execute a perfect series of pirouettes or foutte's (ahrgh, spelling!)





It was however, this one, that I decided to draw my inspiration from:

 It totally says, "Les Sylphides" to me!
Well, my first thoughts were: er- my wedding dress.  Could I possibly get away with wearing my wedding dress, purely for the sake of art??!! (Yes, I could!)
Here it is, for a reminder (or an introduction to anyone who missed it last August)








It was totally suitable- it had pleats, a light, floaty quality to it and it moved in the twisty-turny way that the sculpture does.
But then, I felt a prize twit getting into my wedding dress for it!!!! And also, I cannot do it up by myself and I knew CBC would just think I was a twit if I asked him to do it up!  I thought about asking my friend when she came over in half-term but again, thought I'd look a twit!

My second thought was to wear the wedding dress that I bought but didn't wear! Before I found my much-longed for Johanna Hehir one (I'd given up on finding it anywhere!), I found one in Monsoon that was in the 70% off sale that was almost as lovely but in a simpler way- it was more Jane Austen that my real one- it had a ruffled/pleated bodice but a straight down bias cut skirt and a hanging pleat.  But somehow, I decided not to.

Finally, instead (I'm milking this rather uninteresting tale aren't I?!?!), I remembered this champagne-coloured silk dress I had purchased on Ebay (new) years ago! It also has a pleated bodice and a lovely hanging ruffle. I've never actually worn it because I thought it was more of a blush-pink on ebay and when I got it, there's no way you could wear this to a wedding without looking like you're trying to upstage the bride by wearing white and it's a little too posh for most other occasions (apart from maybe Ascot?!). So, rather like the saying, "Always the bridesmaid, never the bride"- it has remained in my wardrobe. I really do love it- the shape is lovely but not sure how to wear.



To create my contribution for the challenge, I took these photos (it was raining) and then proceeded to prance over my landing like a 'Sylphide' and hold some balletic poses.  Bare feet seemed appropriate for the Sylph look.

One of my nicknames is actually 'Sylph' due to my propensity to wear white floaty skirts and dresses at music camp. A fellow musician, harpist, who also delights in white floaty dresses and skirts called me that and she promptly became my 'Sylphette'

So, what do you think?  How would you have interpreted these artworks?  Would you have gone for the wedding dress?
xx


Click the links to the above bloggers' names to see how everyone else interpreted the art!

x

P.S.  I totally get the sausage dog thing. I originally thought badger or otter, but I'm seeing sausage dog now.x


P.P.S.

Just remembered this hilarious shot from the wedding photos of my sister and eye! Loved it!

(photos courtesy of KAphoto

Backwards

Hello!  Just a brief visit between flying all over the country.  Anne Bray, the cool blogger, Spy Girl has been doing some remix wardrobe costume challenges 52 Pick-me-up and I thought it'd be fun to join in!

I bought this jumper recently and when I bought it, my friend only saw the back of it and thought it was a cool stripy jumper, so she was a bit surprised when she saw the boat!  That put it in my mind as something I could try to wear backwards, even if I'd probably have to wear a coat over the top all the time (the boat might look a little odd on the back. I am no stranger to the wearing dresses and tops backwards thing, I do it all the time with some dresses I own, especially the rainbow madras check dress that Vix likes!

So here it is in its three guises- normal wear, with coat and alone in reverse.  Thoughts please?!



Hmmm, I've been doing the red, white and blue thing a lot recently- I really like that combo of colours.  Maybe a change of palette is necessary? You'll be getting bored of this red coat too!

(Details- jumper- Tu at Sainsbury's, skirt- H by Henry Holland, shoes- Toms)


In other news, we have had a lovely 4 days in Northumberland and spent yesterday stuck in awful traffic coming back down.  Miraculously, we met my Mum at the Wetherby service station! What are the odds of both totally randomly turning up at the same service station at the same time, same day and her mentioning it in a text. I was in Marks and Spencer when her text-message arrived saying, "I'm at Wetherby services, just going to go out of signal range for the weekend...".  I laughed out loud and scared the lady next to me and then went to hunt for her!

In other news, and thank you for your concern, Grandad is not at all well- he's refusing treatment, keeps pulling his drip out and is not eating and the pneumonia has spread to his other lung. He's sleeping most of the time and seems so weak but when you try to put his oxygen mask back on, the strength there in resisting is astonishing. Perhaps he feels that he just wants to go. Please pray x



Hugs to you all
xx

Oh and don't forget me 9th blogiversary giveaway- 2 posts ago. xx

Coral reef

One thing bloggers and their outfits have taught me is that dresses don't simply have to be worn by themselves or with a  cardie but you can layer blouses underneath! Silly but I never GOT that before!
One thing they clearly haven't taught me is the art of ironing.  I do laugh when I look at my scruffly, rumpled, messy clothes (in this case, namely the blouse- look how limp and scraggly the pussy bow is when it should be big and wide!).  On another blogger (preferably one who irons?) this probably would have looked nice!  Anyway, either way, I was happy to be wearing this dress when it's not summer! It was a French bargain in a shop for 5 euros 2 years ago and the blouse was a delightful French Connection charity shop find.

Today there was an Easter Bonnet competition at school- there were some really amazing ones and I thought I MUST make one some time. My Mini-me had turned her turquoise straw floppy hat into an Easter bonnet and I said to her that she must let me try it on and take a picture which she giggled at.  She laughed even more (and her mum) when I chased her down the street to take the mentioned picture!  I was originally planning to try and make a fascinator with flowers last night but CBC had gone out and he has the only keys to our shed (where my craft paraphernalia is stored.). Good thing too as I only got back from seeing Grandad at 9.30pm!  I was shocked to find him (Grandad) talking as if my Grandmother (who died some 16 years ago) was still alive and he kept asking when she was coming back and why she had gone.  I was worried to say the wrong thing to distress him so it wasn't the easiest of visits. It's either the medication or when he stops wearing his oxygen mask seems to be the theory for why.  My Mum checked with my Aunt and apparently she just told him straight that she was dead and he remembered and snapped out of it.  But there's no phone reception in the hospital so I couldn't phone to check. So I would have been ok.  Still, I didn't want to distress him and the nurse suggested I just say whatever to try and settle him down.  Not sure that really worked.

Tomorrow, I am meeting my Canadian work colleague, who has become a really good friend in the 4 months she's been at my school, and another young colleague in Borough market for her birthday.  I'm really looking forward it as they are so nice and it will be nice to socialise outside of school too! We're planning to go and swim at the Olympic park another time too, but can't this holiday as she's back to Canada for the holidays.  CBC is at school tonight supervising a student sleepover.  He's absolutely MAD.  In the space of 48 hours or so, he's doing that, cycling in a 100 mile race/ride and then driving us to Northumberland! Er- crazy!


Linking to Visible Monday  with the fabulous Patti with my er- slightly bright ensemble?

The dream skirt

It's Inspiration Monday with Mrs and Mrs Bird (!)  AKA Twobirds (congratulations to one-week married Megan!).  This is quite a sweet look. I love these lacy shorts.  I don't own any but I do own this skirt, which is white and short and cute.

When I worked in HE administration, I dreamed up a skirt I'd like.  It was broderie anglaise and embroidered with coloured butterflies.  It would have a rainbow-beribboned waistband.
And then, bizarrely enough, I was wandering in Marylebone high street in my lunchbreak and I happened to go into Whistles, a higher-end high-street UK store and saw this skirt on a rack.  It was still about £70 but it was like my dream-skirt (without being Broderie Anglaise).  However, a) that was too expensive and b) not in my size. No Whistles stores in London had a size 8 left sadly. I actually ended up buying the sarong and dresss in the same range- but they were print not embroidered.
Fast forward a couple of years and for some bizarre reason, I did a search on Ebay for Whistles butterfly skirt and some darling person was selling one for a mere fraction of the price!  That was a happy day when I finally met my skirt! (That sounds like something that Daniel Cleaver would say in Bridget Jones!)


Today, since I was teaching Javanese gamelan to children and would be clambering all over the floor, I obviously didn't wear the skirt for school but I did wear the other elements!
This WILL be the last time you see my stomach!  I don't like tying my shirt up but it does look cute on people, it just makes me a bit self-conscious!


The skirt is Whistles via Ebay, blouse- H&M, necklaces (whitestuff and birthday gifts), shoes- Cath Kidston, denim headband and bag-Primark.

I was a little nervous about today as I was teaching gamelan to children on a real gamelan for the first time. I've taught adults and university students and children on normal percussion but never on the real thing with children!  I knew it would be fine but I still find the unknow a little unnerving.  We managed to get there and back safely and in time, the teaching went well and the children seemed to really enjoy it.  They really enoyed sketching the instruments as well, which I got them to do when they weren't playing.  Definitely, a trip to repeat! Thanks to my Mum who came along to help too!





Hope you are well xxx