OOTD: Style Imitating Art - Sunday Morning by Norman Rockwell

New SIA host Shelbee selected this artwork from the May 16, 1959 cover of the Saturday Evening Post for her first foray because her family had a framed print of it in their house growing up and the illustration reminds her of her father. Shelbee always does a top notch job of creating SIA outfits and writing detailed posts about her outfits and the artists so it's great that she's joined the SIA hosting crew.

I was initially a little uncertain of this one because I first focused on the row of neat and tidy mom and kids decked out in their Sunday best...a mode of dress I don't relate to very strongly these days and that did not appeal for a WFH Monday outfit of the day. But then I looked at the dad figure and thought, "Oh good, a disheveled menswear vibe...that I can do!"

Sunday Morning by Norman Rockwell (source: shelbeeontheedge.com)

This time around, instead of noting the various aspects of the image and making decisions about items that matched up to them, I immediately knew I wanted to wear my dark red cable knit sweater as my version of a cozy red top layer. We are strongly in sweater season in Minnesota so that's definitely where my mind is. (Though actually the weather has been pretty mild the last few days, which I don't mind at all!)

I next considered my grey and white striped pants options and came up blank, but then remembered this thrifted grey and white striped scarf that invoked both the pajamas and the smudged newsprint in the image.

Having decided on the two anchoring pieces for my look, I considered the following additional inspirational elements:

--Button up shirt, untucked

--Menswear trousers

--Unkempt hair

--Brown slippers

I was able to easily incorporate these aspects into my outfit! My distinctly-not-crisp white button up tunic worked well in place of the pajama top, and the extra length emphasized the messily untucked styling. For the pants I chose a pair of grey trousers with a black herringbone pattern, a classic for menswear.

OOTD 2/7/2022

Continuing with the menswear theme, I tied the scarf in a sloppy version of the traditional men's four-in-hand tie knot. I liked that my scarf choice was bringing a literal "rough around the edges" element to the outfit.

The day before, I washed my hair in water only (and conditioner at the very ends), skipping the shampoo, and let it dry in twists overnight. This gave my hair messy waves in the morning without it looking too fresh for the inspiration look or too dirty for a WFH day with on-video meetings.

I am addicted to wearing DIY bracelets these days so I was pretty excited when I realized that I have a DIY paper bead bracelet made from black and white line drawings that looks similar to newsprint. I added a variety of DIY black bead bracelets to the stack.

My calf hair leopard smoking slippers were the natural choice for footwear, though oddly I didn't think of them right away...perhaps because I don't typically wear them with grey? But I liked the combination in this outfit and felt that the subtle print mixing added a "me" element to the look.

I was also very pleased with the overall mix of textures in the outfit. In addition to the calf hair shoes, we have the slightly nubby herringbone pants, the white shirt with a limp crumpled texture (that I love!), the cable knit sweater, and the loosely woven scarf.

For my rabbit selection I knew I would be picking a magpie Harlequin...which completely coincidentally was also the breed I chose for the February My Scarf 2022 bunny just the other day! But whereas the earlier Harlequin had a sparse coloration of blue-grey against the white background, today's rabbit has the more traditional black stripes, which shade into a heathery grey where the white and black hairs are interspersed. She's such an eye-catching rabbit, and doesn't she match my striped scarf, the pajamas, and the newsprint very well?

Black Magpie Harlequin Rabbit

To see other outfit interpretations of the Sunday Morning illustration, check out the round-up on Shelbee on the Edge.

Which character or other elements of the artwork would you have used to inspire your outfit?

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