Combining Feminine and Masculine Outfit Elements in a Casual Look for SIA The Lovers

Marsha at Marsha in the Middle is the curator for this round of Style Imitating Art (SIA), and she selected a very personally meaningful artwork this time: "The Lovers" aka "Fancy Couple" by Indiana artist Maude Eggemeyer. As Marsha explains: "These prints hung in our bedroom for many years. My father-in-law bought a trunk at an auction in the early 60s. These two pictures were in the trunk."

Source: marshainthemiddle.com

I liked the blue and pink color palette and feminine details of the woman's dress as a starting point for my outfit, but how to include something from the gentleman's side into my look? Because my husband is not a cooperative poser for photographs, I had to enlist another one of my loves into my version: a rabbit, of course! The adorable lop rabbit on my French bunny top is wearing a beret rather than a top hat but still makes a wonderful stand-in for the gentleman in the painting. The lop rabbit breeds are included in the "fancy breeds" (i.e., rabbits for showing or keeping as pets), and this particular debonair bunny doesn't have to try at all to embody the "fancy" part of this "fancy couple."

OOTD 10/20/24

I took inspiration from the gentleman on the left to wear full length pants in my outfit...jeans in my case for a casual weekend outfit. I'm still taking advantage of the dry fall weather to wear "normal" jeans that almost touch the ground. I paired the jeans with pewter snakeskin-like loafers to add a touch of "fancy" shine to the bottom of my outfit.

I layered up my rabbit with a vest (my take on the left gentleman's waistcoat), a feminine blue and pink floral scarf (to represent the left lady's dress), and a "fancy" and bling-y necklace that I consider a Pleasing Pairing with the bunny top.

My all-DIY daily bracelet stack is based on a paper bead bracelet set in light blue, pink, and silver that I made in winter 2022 (for full details, including page to bead photos, see Set 4 in this post). I only wore 2 of the 3 paper bead bracelets because I wanted to downplay the black color in my outfit. I supplemented my stack with glass and stone bead bracelets in coordinating shades of pink and blue. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial}

Of course I had to wear a new pair of bead soup earrings that I made to wear with the bracelet set: a stack of 5 glass beads in varying shapes and sizes in the crucial light blue and pink colors.

Now for my favorite part of the post: revealing our Rabbit Imitating Art selection! It was clear to me that I needed a lop rabbit who resembled the French bunny standing in for the gentleman in the painting...a Rabbit Imitating a Rabbit Imitating Art, if you will. This elegant lop with a broken fur pattern of black/dark grey on white passed his audition with flying colors.

As the lop rabbit entered the artwork, he quickly determined that the gallant gentleman on the left was successfully wooing his lady as befits "The Lovers." Turning his attention to the couple on the right, he saw that the sneering gentleman was provoking haughty disdain in his target. While humans have a whole popular genre of "enemies to lovers" romances that are inexplicable in rabbit terms, the bunny correctly calculated that this "Fancy Couple" was not en route to a Mr. Darcy/Elizabeth Bennet outcome. He chose to intervene. The bunny bowed graciously to the lady, and the stark contrast between the rabbit's quiet courtesy and the gentleman's snarky rudeness could not have been more apparent. The combination of respect and adorableness hit her like Cupid's arrow, and she thought, Why do I need an annoying man when I could have a well-mannered rabbit?! She picked up the bunny and took him home...

Artwork "improved" with rabbit

And, well, it's a good thing our lady had a full staff of human servants in that home because she found out quite soon that "well-mannered rabbit" and "chews everything he can reach" are not a contradiction. But she was very happy with her bunny that chewed many things but never chewed her ear off with boastful talk of his own superiority like that dreadful gentleman! (To her surprise and delight, she and her bunny later met a rabbit-loving and gentle man who became the human love of her life; Cupid's arrow can strike twice.)

Thanks for joining me today for this Style Imitating Art + Rabbit Imitating (and Improving) Art post!

To see other outfit interpretations of this artwork, check out the review on Marsha on the Middle.

Does your personal style veer more toward the feminine, the masculine, or somewhere in between? Are you a fan of pink and blue as a color combination? Do you like wearing jeans in the fall? Do you like enemies to lovers romances? What artwork hangs in your bedroom?

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