Style Imitating Art-Simultaneous Dresses (Three Women, Forms, Colours) by Sonia Delaunay

Welcome to this edition of Style Imitating Art!

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 Weeks Curator

That would be me.

This Week’s Inspirational Art

My pick for this challenge is Simultaneous Dresses (Three Women, Forms, Colours) by Sonia Delaunay, in which she painted in 1925.

Why Did I Pick This Work of Art?

I have always liked Sonia Delaunay’s work. However, the work that I’m most familiar with is slightly different that the one I’m presenting today. When we usually think of Sonia Delaunay, abstract concentric circles in glorious colors is first thing that pops into our minds. Sonia and her husband, Robert Delaunay, coined this style that they both perused as “Simultaneous Contrasts”. Critics dubbed it “Orphism and it is considered a cross between Cubism and Futurism.

However, although today’s work has the color skill that she is know for, it also has recognizable images.

The Multi-Disciplinary Artist

Delaunay’s creativity expanded beyond painting to include many other outlets such as Casa Sonia, an interiors and fashion boutique that she set up 1918. She also designed costumes for ballet, stage and films. Her textiles label Tissus Delaunay sold her designs worldwide.

She was an excellent seamstress and clothing designer which came in handy when the fine arts didn’t pay the bills. She pulled the family through a few hard times. Her husband, Robert, passed away in 1941 of cancer. After his death, she did not produce work for ten years. She was the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre in 1964 and passed away in 1979.

As I mentioned earlier, this is not the work she is mainly know for. The Tate has a wonderful abbreviated overview of her life and work which I recommend.

Tying It Up

I feel that Simultaneous Dresses (Three Women, Forms, Colours) offers so many different avenues of interpretations because of the three different dresses she presented in the painting. Now, I already know which one I’m going with. What about you?

Will You Join the Fun?

I hope this art inspires you to create a look and that you will join us. Send me your picture of your SIA inspired outfit along with a small blurb on how you were inspired to meadowtreestyle@gmail.com May 18th. I’ll share the submissions on my blog on Wednesday May 19th.

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.

Take care and create on!

“Colour is the skin of the world“-Sonia Delaunay