Blue, White, The Royals, B-17’s, and TWA for Style Imitating Art

Hello and welcome to my interpretation of this edition of the SIA challenge.

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Daenel of Living Outside the Stacks and me. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday one of us selects an inspiration image and we each post the image on our blogs. The following Monday we share our art-inspired outfits. The following Wednesday, the curator shares all of the submissions on her blog.

This Round’s Presenter

Today, Daenel of Living Outside the Stacks is the curator.

This Week’s Inspirational Image-Sky above Clouds IV by Georgia Okeefe,

Georgia O’keefe painted this in 1965. It is a large work (8 ft. x 24 ft.) and is a part of a series that was inspired by her experience as an airplane passenger in the 1950.

My Take

I was influenced by two ideas; the blue and white (and that color connection in my part of this big blue ball) of the sky and clouds and airplanes in general.

Blue and White

First up are the two main pieces that comprise this outfit; the cropped white jeans and 3/4th sleeve top. The jeans are “new to me”. Earlier this Spring I had a hankering to try some cropped jeans. I had thrifted some wide legged white jeans about four years ago and was just going to cut them off just to see if I would possibly like them. Well, I guess I thrifted them back because they were no where to be found! So a trip to eBay was my next excursion.

I found, at auction, this pair of Everlane’s in a size that might fit might fit so put in my bid. No one else bid so it was a win for me. Fortunately, they fit nicely and look good. That was taking a big chance and I usually don’t do something like that. I had no inkling of how Everlane sizes ran. There was some sizing information on the description but even then, you never really know when it comes to pants.

As far as the knit blue top, it is old, old, old! I found it on sale at Chico’s in the middle 2000’s and hung on to it, because, for years it was the only top I had for the 4th and still is the only top I have in this blue.

Blue + White = Kansas City Royals: World Series Champions,-1985 & 2015

This leads into my sneakers.

In this part of the world, it’s the Kansas City Royals (unless you live the the eastern part of the state, then it’s the St. Louis Cardinals). When I saw that KEDS had major league pennant tennis shoes, how could I resist. You have to have fan gear! This was a few years ago and there’s not to many left. Their current collection includes just the pennant shoes without any team logo or some shoes representing major market teams like the Yankees and Cubs (of course). OK, that’s it for baseball!

Accessories

My accessories is where airplanes come into play. My love of airplanes goes back to my Dad. Not only was he a sheet metal mechanic for TWA, he also flew model airplanes. My necklace reflects this.

It is the B-17, the American workhorse of WW 2. It is a design by Laura (My interview with her is here) who is the creator behind Modern Sage Design. I have always liked Laura’s approach to jewelry making and have quite a few of her pieces. She is also a full-time airline pilot (I think Southwest). She no longer offers this unique piece but has other lovely designs in her ETSY shop

Next is my tote bag. In the Spring of 2016, Kansas City’s Heidi Herrman designed a collection of Kansas City Icon dresses (my review of the collection). As a side project, she also made some tote bags of some of the icons, including the TWA Moonliner tote. With our family’s history with the airline, I snapped it up during a sale. Heidi is now in Springfield, MO and has turned to fine art and jewelry design. But that icon collection of hers will always be one of my all time favorites.

Finally, with my pants, I found that I didn’t have a belt to wear with them. I found this vintage looking white belt on Amazon for $24.95. I have always loved this style! Unfortunately, It is bonded leather. I like the concept of using leftovers but my experience with bonded things is that they don’t have a long life. We’ll see how long it looks good.

I think that about wraps it up for me.

Will You Join the Fun?

I hope this art inspires you to create a look and that you will join us. Send a photo of your SIA inspired outfit along with a small blurb on how you were inspired to Daenel whose email is livingoutsidethestack@gmail.com by May 4th. She will share the submissions on her blog on Wednesday May 5th.

Anyone can participate and you certainly do not have to have a blog.

If you do share your inspirations on Instagram use the hashtag #StyleImitatingArt so we know you are there. You can also tag us in the images. Our Instagram names are: terrigardner_meadowtree, daenelt and 14shadesofgrey.

That’s it for today. Take care and stay creative!

Remember when I said that my Dad use to fly model airplanes? Our youngest daughter is the keeper of the one airplane of his still in existence. This is his red Rat Racer. Rat Racers are small and fast. Dad would spend hours upon hours in his workshop building his competitive planes. He was best at stunt competitions but those planes were large (and they crashed a lot, which wasn’t good news for a Balsa wood construction). We don’t have any of those.

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