How to Wear Black Jeans and Sneakers with Fall Colors for SIA Maurice Denis

Salazar at 14 Shades of Grey is the curator for this round of Style Imitating Art (SIA), and she selected the 1893 oil painting "The Muses" by French artist Maurice Denis. She chose this work to mark the short fall season in her part of the world (Vietnam) and notes that the painting "with its shades of ochre, brown, burgundy, and olive, fits the bill perfectly." You'd be hard pressed to find a more autumnal color palette than these rich warm brown tones, and of course the trees with their orange foliage are quintessentially fall.

Source: 14shadesofgrey.wordpress.com

When Salazar shared this image, I was surprised by how much "The Muses" (left) looks like the painting "Dans le Parc" (right) that has been inspiring a capsule wardrobe all year at The Vivienne Files (October installment here). It seemed identical other than the color palette of warmer browns in the one and cooler greens in the other. A quick Google search revealed that these are indeed the same painting: the principle title is "Les Muses" (The Muses) and the alternative title is "Dans le Parc" ("In the Park"). I don't know which version is truer to colors of the painting, but images online show a pretty wide variation of colors. I decided to treat all of these colors as fair game for my interpretation, as always appreciating the inclusion of my beloved olive green in my option set.

Sources: 14shadesofgrey.wordpress.com / theviviennefiles.com

Of course I took this opportunity to build an outfit around my Woodland Critter T that is my go-to autumn top with its wonderful fall color palette and adorable animal motifs. The best part is the little beige rabbits hiding in the foliage but peeking their heads out from behind the leaves. I love that this top pairs the classic autumn colors of the print with a black background because while black is not as associated with fall as neutrals like brown, tan, beige, and olive, many of us have a good amount of black in our wardrobes that we'd like to continue wearing across seasons. (For example, I created a 12 month capsule wardrobe with brown and black neutrals in the Nelly series here.) Having a black-based print makes it very easy to style this top with black pieces.

Because Salazar had pointed out the burgundy in the warm version of the painting (such as the woman in a long burgundy dress at the left side of the painting), I decided to pair my woodland critters top with a wine cardigan. I don't think I would have thought to wear these items together normally, but it turned out great. I liked the idea of black with the burgundy so I wore a pair of relatively new black straight leg jeans (purchased last spring) and some very new Adidas sneakers. I bought the sneakers hoping that they'd make a good combination with the jeans, and I'm happy that my plan worked out.

OOTD 10/8/24

I'm really enjoying this (hopefully not too brief) fashion moment for what I only half-jokingly call "regular jeans": not skinnies, not wide legs, not flares, not high-waisted Mom jeans, not ankle jeans or crops...just normal full-length straight leg jeans. And when I say "full-length," I do mean full length. Long enough to get a bit of stacking on the front of the shoe and for the back hem to just barely not touch the ground.

If you've ever lived in Texas, you might scoff because Texans are all about the seriously long jeans. You may be at the laundromat in Austin wearing flip flops, but you gotta have your jeans long enough to wear with a pair of cowboy boots and ride away on a horse at a moment's notice if needs must. I've seen Texans wear jeans so long they substitute for shoes entirely. My jeans are full length but definitely not long by Texas standards...however, I think they're good enough that Lyle Lovett wouldn't feel the need to admonish me to buy my pants "just a little longer" as he does in the song "That's Right (You're Not From Texas)."

Anyway, since I'm still working from home, I'm going to take advantage of the opportunity to wear long jeans/pants and regular shoes more often throughout the fall/winter/spring wet and snowy season...rather than relying completely on skirts with tights and boots. I'll probably be wearing this Pleasing Pairing of jeans + sneakers on repeat.

My layered necklace is a brand spankin' new DIY set I made to coordinate with this top. I used black wood beads, olive glass pearls, tiger-eye stone beads (black and brown swirled), olive Czech glass with a picasso finish (adds a splotchy brown color), DIY paper beads, and gold spacers. I used another olive green stone bead and leaf charm (both from my bead soup!) for the focal on the short strung necklace. I used a large olive lampwork bead and a gold tree pendant on the long beaded chain necklace. Fall vibes achieved.

I am pleasantly surprised to discover that I did take page to bead photos of the materials I used in making these paper beads! The original paper is an advertisement on cardstock (maybe an Amazon mailer?) with bubbles of text that I covered over with black acrylic craft paint. I also added streaks of paint to partially cover the white bike trails on the paper because I didn't really want much white to show on my beads. Added to the olive green background and brown signs and tree trunks on the original card, the black paint gave me a great olive, black, and hints of brown color scheme on the final beads...perfect for my purpose. My paper beads were 1" long and 9.5mm around, which was a nice chunky size to work with the 10-12mm wood, glass, and stone beads I used.

My daily bracelet stack is based on a new paper bead bracelet set (that I shared in detail last October), also made to go with this woodland critters top. I picked out two rust bracelets, two mixed metal bracelets, and one black one to round out the stack. The rust bracelets are my nod to the prevalence of rich warm rusty tones in the warm version of the painting. I included the mixed metals bracelets to make the inclusion of the silver rabbit charm with the gold necklace look more intentional (plus I just love a mixed metal look). {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial}

I am back again with another pair of bead soup earrings made to coordinate with the paper bead bracelet set. I pulled out the black, rust, dark green, and lime green colors from the paper beads and added gold spacers and findings. I was lucky to have two adorable little black enamel rabbit charms to dangle from the earrings to continue the woodland critters theme.

Now for the moment we've all been waiting for: our Rabbit Imitating Art selection! I had a very specific color combination in mind for this painting, and by a great stroke of luck, I almost immediately found a volunteer in my archives that had the "tri color" look. The Rhinelander rabbit did, as its name suggests, originate in Germany. It has a distinctive coat with both black and orange broken/"butterfly" markings against a white background. I didn't realize that there is a global population of less than 2,000 Rhinelander rabbits. I was fortunate to see and photograph this particular beauty at the Minnesota State Fair in 2016, and it is my pleasure to share this bunny with the world readers of this blog.

Our bunny shows how well the warm rusty orange works with black against a light background that lets the colors pop. However, he's not exactly thrilled to find himself transported to a park filled with people. And these tall chestnut trees offer no helpful scrub or ground cover for him to hide in (unlike the woodland critters of my top). However, the situation is not as bad as it first appears, dear rabbit! For these people are not humans, but Muses, and the space you have entered is "a 'sacred wood,' the setting for a revelation and the figures' mysterious communication with nature and supernatural powers."

Artwork "improved" with rabbit

"Hmmm....supernatural?" thinks our bunny. "Maybe that explains why this ground is covered in a carpet or rug instead of grass!" The Muse seated on the right has just noticed the rabbit: "If we want to save this lovely carpet, we'd better conjure up some snacks for our nibblesome guest." It's a good thing that Denis added a 10th Muse to this painting because the original set of nine Greek muses does not include an inspirational goddess of food! What myth-laden fruit do we think the 10th Muse will provide - figs? pomegranates? apples? I think he'll be happy with any of these!

Of course, for me the rabbit vs. Muse/goddess distinction is irrelevant because rabbits are my supreme beings and I surround myself with their iconography. In this photo of my new sneakers, you can see a bunny adorning a storage cube and a small jewelry container in the shape of a rabbit.

Sneakers photo improved with rabbits

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 14 Shades of Grey.

Do you know whether the warm brown or cool green version of this painting is closer to the real thing? Which version do you find more inspirational for an outfit...or would you include elements of both colorways as I did? What is your favorite jeans style right now? Do you ever wear full length or Texas-long jeans? Would you wear brown and black together?

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