Shelbee at Shelbee on the Edge is the curator for this round of Style Imitating Art (SIA), and she selected the Diamond Dust Shoes series of screen prints by Andy Warhol from the 1980s. Shelbee explains that Warhol created these prints "for an ad campaign for his friend, fashion designer Roy Halston. Because Warhol's roots are in shoe design and I am a lifelong shoe lover, I decided this was the one." Or the several, actually, because Shelbee offered up 8 different prints; I chose these three as my inspiration...to create two outfits of the day worn back to back last week.
My first outfit was based on these two colorful collections of shoes spilling out at all angles. (Shelbee shared that when the designer's assistant delivered the shoes, he "dumped the box on the floor leaving an accidental arrangement of footwear that intrigued Andy. He immediately began snapping photographs of the spilled out shoes...") I decided to bring in a few of these bright colors with this striped scarf that was a gift from my sister in 2020, purchased as part of the marketplace supporting the Kilgoris Project in Kenya. The lives of children in rural Africa could not be more different from the promise of glamour and luxury that advertising relies on to promote the purchase of designer heels, but I was struck by how both the pop art advertising screen prints from a famous artist and the handmade woven scarf from an unknown artisan use vivid color and rich texture to create something beautiful.
To get a little of that "every which way" vibe of the shoe layout, I paired the scarf with a striped sweater, creating an outfit with stripes in a variety of directions. I continued the teal theme of the sweater with my fall 2023 teal pants (blogged here). Although the screen prints were made from actual diamond dust on paper (?!?!!!) to create a glittering effect, I went with the more prosaic metallic snakeskin print of these loafers to add some shine to my look.
I used the easy shank button and elastic trick to make a scarf ring that holds the scarf in place so the effect of the stripes crossing at different angles wasn't lost as I moved around.
My all-DIY bracelet stack is based on what I believe is the first paper bead bracelet set I ever made, designed to coordinate with a black and teal floral blouse I still wear. (That was 3 years ago now, which I find difficult to believe, but the spreadsheets don't lie!) I completed my stack with various teal, black, white, and clear beaded bracelets. I like the way the black/clear crackle glass beads have a crystal look (since the diamonds used in that dust are crystals). {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}
My DIY earrings are another bead soup creation, made specifically to wear with this scarf. It's another of my go-to "beads on a stick" designs with a skinny-ish (6mm and smaller beads) and long-ish stack that repeats the various colors of the scarf. Alternating between rounder beads and flat disks mimics the stripe effect of the scarf a bit, which I like.
My second outfit was inspired by the black and teal screen print, though I did decide to wear this floral print skirt with the yellow-green pop of color as a nod to the yellow and spring green tones in the other artwork shown above. I thought the stylized leaf-and-flower print of the skirt was a good fit for the somewhat abstract rendering of the shoes in the artwork as well.
This combination is a bit more sedate than some of my outfits, but I enjoyed playing with the texture of the pieces to create some visual interest. The sweater is a black and white marl knit that strongly reminds me of the static-y "snow" that we used to see on our televisions when the channel wasn't coming through. Does this mean I'm not tuned in? (Maybe when you arrange the rabbit ears properly, this sweater turns into the blush pink one with the sweet bunnies on it that I wore for the last SIA...)
My practical, hard-working tall black leather boots do not have any diamond dust magic to them, but they are nice and warm for the cold February weather in Minnesota.
The lovely medium teal color and subtle striped texture of this scarf pleases me so much every time I wear it.
I'm wearing a 7-strand memory wire bracelet that I made specifically to coordinate with this skirt and a print jacket in similar colors (shown below). It's funny...some people lightheartedly complain that it takes so long to make a memory wire bracelet, particularly if you're using seed beads and other small beads (which I did use in mine along with some larger beads) and/or you are making a lot of wraps (as I did)...and they're not wrong, exactly. But compared to making paper bead bracelets, it's pretty quick because you don't have to make the beads yourself. Of course, I find making the beads myself a joy, but a paper bead project is not something you just sit down and whip out all in one sitting the night before you want to wear it, you know? Whereas a memory wire bracelet, you can totally do that. You don't even have to wait for a daub of glue to dry as you do with a stretch bracelet.
Shocker, I'm wearing another DIY beads-on-a-stick bead soup earring pair with this outfit. I made them in a black and mint color palette to match a floral scarf in my collection (shown below). I used more of those black/clear crackle glass beads in two sizes plus two sizes of mint/aquamarine stone beads and a mint glass pearl. The lighter color and shinier surface of the glass pearl makes them stand out nicely against the teal scarf.
Now for my favorite thing about my SIA posts: revealing the Rabbit Imitating Art selection! As I was looking at all those different shoes, spilled out in all different directions, I couldn't imagine how I'd pick one rabbit to represent it. Then I realized, wait a moment, I don't need to pick one. I could put all the rabbits from all the SIA challenges I've blogged about together in one photo! So I did. Well, technically it's "most" of the SIA rabbits because there were a couple that for some reason I couldn't find where I'd saved the individual rabbit image. But I think we can agree that this is a large and delightful array of rabbits! Many breeds, colors, patterns, sizes, shapes, positions, and personalities all together in one place. Looking at this plethora of bunnies, I realize that I have done a LOT of SIA challenges if I have this many Rabbits Imitating Art!
If somebody wanted to draw my attention to a marketing campaign, featuring colorful shoes and rabbits in large numbers would definitely do the trick!
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 Shelbee on the Edge.
Would you be inspired by the colors of this artwork as I was, or would you be thinking about what fabulous shoes you were going to wear? Do you wear high heels? Do you like the random, spilled-out arrangement of the shoes or would you prefer a neater pattern? Do you remember TV "snow" and rabbit ears?
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I love all these teal shades and your bracelet stacks are amazing!