Celery Green Linen Jacket for Romani Vardo Caravan

Welcome to my interpretation for this round of Style Imitating Art.

A Little Background

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 next Wednesday, the curator shares all the submissions on her blog.

This Week’s Curator

Shelbee was the curator of this round.

Shelbee chose the Vardas Vans from the Roma culture. These, like shepherd’s vans, are the forerunners of the popular, tiny house movement that is so prevalent today. And believe me, I am transfixed by this movement and follow one YouTube channel (Bryce and his Living Big in a Tiny House) that basically spearheaded this phenomenon.

Shelbee let us pick which van we wanted to work off of. I looked around and found one that fit best with my closet. This was the one I am showing above. The two main colors are green and gold. There is a bit of red, but it is not one of the main colors. I could work with that.

My Take

There’s always a lot of black at the symphony (usually including me too). I sort of stuck out with my lighter pants.

Sometimes life just throws quite a few curve balls at us and this was one of those weeks for us. I’m not going into details, but I had to combine SIA with going to the symphony again. Unlike last time, when I did this, there was some challenge in getting things together.

I knew I wanted to wear the celery green linen jacket that I picked up at an upper-end retail shop in Kansas City (now out of business). This jacket is important because at the time I had never heard of Juliana Collezione. From what I researched, in the States, this was a very high-end in-home shopping experience. I started looking on eBay and found absolutely gorgeous jackets that I fell in love with. This one jacket led to about a dozen more. A lot of them are made in the USA and of natural materials, such as wool, silk, and linen.

So the jacket was a no-brainer, but I soon figured out why I had not worn it much. It really needs certain neutrals to look really good. I ended up settling on an organic Tee-Shirt that my older daughter gifted me in 1998 and a pair of drawstring linen pants that I know I bought in 1997. This was going back!

I’ve always considered these pants very casual and usually wear loose summer tops with them. Now, I don’t go casual to the symphony, so I had to figure out how I could elevate these pants to what I needed. I think I did an OK job, but I would also be interested in what everyone else thinks. This has gotten me thinking that I would love a pair of tan neutral Pallazo pants. They would not look casual!

Finishing It Out With Gold

I decided that gold would be the best answer to elevating this look. I started out by using my “new to me” Michael Kors crossbody (which can also be worn as a shoulder bag) metallic gold bag. This is one of the newest additions to my closet. The RealReal was having a pretty good sale earlier this month and I picked up this bag along with a pair of black leather Greats sneakers.

I pulled out a selection of necklaces and settled on this one by Lionette by Noa Sade. I love Lionette jewelry but only have two pieces. This one, I found pre-loved on eBay quite a while ago. The earrings were bought on clearance at Francis Valentine. The earrings pick up just enough of the red that it’s not overwhelming but still carries out the theam for my chosen van.

Finally, we have the very old Ralph Lauren gold silk Espridrills. Up to this point, I had only worn these shoes in the summer. But they were the only shoes I had that worked with all the linen.

That finishes me for this one and I hope you enjoyed reading about my idea for this painting. Have you sent Shelbee your idea? If you have not done so already, please send it to Shelbee at shelbeeontheedge@gmail.com by tomorrow.

See you next time!