Layering It on for Jan Steen’s “The Art Lesson”

Hello, and welcome to Style Imitating Art’s “Reveal Monday”. Today is the day that the hosts, unveil our interpretations of the chosen artwork.

What Is Style Imitating Art?

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and me. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday one of us selects an inspirational 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 Rounds Art Work

This round’s work is “The Art Lesson” by Jan Steen, which was picked by me. It is a simple composition with a lot of colors and textures. With the dusty roses, pinks, blues (and blue greens), golds, and tans, I thought there would be colors that should be in most closets.

My Take

As usual, I looked at individual elements of the painting rather than the whole when making a decision about how to style my outfit. The elements that I pulled out were the layering of the young female student’s attire, the use of different shades of brown throughout the whole painting, and the fact that there was quite a lot of texture.

The main element of my idea was layering. It was handy that for the past week, our weather in the Mid-West has been mild and perfect for layering.

I will start with the outer layer and work my way to the center. First, I played off the fur muff on the floor of the studio, and am wearing a faux fur Sanctuary Clothing vest. I purchased this vest either in late 2015 or early 2016. Some seasons I wear it and in some seasons I don’t. It depends on my mood and this year I have been rotating it in and have it in my main closet. I find as I get older, I’m drawn more and more to outerwear vests.

Under the vest, I have a brown cashmere V-neck sweater, which was also purchased (sometime during Covid), second-hand on eBay. Under the sweater, I am wearing a vintage silk tan capped sleeve top that I found at a Kansas City vintage store quite a few years ago. Manufactured in Hong Kong, it has covered buttons, hidden buttons, and a high collar.

I used the idea of the female student’s scarf around her shoulders and used a small Poodle motif silk scarf around my neck.

The Extras

Of course, I had to pick some accessories to carry out this idea and the two main ones fall into that texture theme. My boots are by Pikolinos. I’m not in the market for new boots but if I were, I would probably go back to Pikolinos because their shoes just feel comfortable on my feet.

Again with the texture, I went with my Brahmin Duxbury in Pecan with gold hardware. I got it from Macy’s in the middle of Lockdown to cheer me up. There was a rare sale on it and that was all I needed because this bag had been on my radar for a pretty long while.

These shades of brown and tan probably aren’t the best match for each other but I love the texture that each one offers.

The other extra items that I added were a pair of brown leather gloves and a semi-precious stone pendant by a Kansas City jewelry designer. Finally, I played everything against my dark Madewell jeans for a casual look, which fitted perfectly with what I was doing that day. When I was outdoors, the sunnies were on-need to protect those eyes on a sunny day!

Summing It Up

And about that day…last Monday when I published the introductory post about this round’s work, I also had an appointment at my hospital for a bone density test. I always try to style things that I would and could wear here in the mid-west and this worked just great. All, the pictures for today were taken at the hospital. I was very happy with how this one turned out.

That sums it up for me for this round.

I hope you find something in this work that inspired you and didn’t mind the ramble into some of my shopping philosophy. Send me what you come up with at meadowtreestyle@gmail.com along with a small blurb on how the work influenced your choices by tomorrow.

I will do a roundup this Wednesday featuring all your designs. I hope that Abigale Rose has inspired you to put together something.

Take care everyone and stay creative!

One extra small shot-the silk top also has texture. It could be woven from some type of raw silk and I added my silk Poodle scarf for fun. Over the years, I’ve curated a small collection of silk Poodle scarves of various sizes.

OK, that is finally it. Take care and hope to hear from you.