How to Style a Ditsy Floral Skirt for SIA: Basket of Flowers

Marsha at Marsha in the Middle is the curator for this round of Style Imitating Art (SIA), and she selected the circa 1913 oil painting "The Basket of Flowers" by American Impressionist painter Frederick Carl Frieseke. She picked this artwork from the free images at the National Gallery of Art because it offers us a lot to work with in creating summer outfits and isn't "a portrait of a man, anything to do with religion of any kind, or naked people...[and also doesn't have] dead birds littering up the table" of a still life.

Source: marshainthemiddle.com

Although the navy background is a darker shade of blue than that of the wallpaper, I thought the ditsy floral print was a good match for it, and I was ready to style the skirt for its first wear this summer.

Of course a striped piece would be the perfect accompaniment to the skirt to mimic the painting most closely; a navy and white striped T or a white top and striped cardigan are both great choices that I have in my wardrobe.

But just as I was ready to put the skirt into my summer outfit rotation, I also wanted wear my dusky rose cardigan one last time before the weather got too hot for it, so I chose a navy blouse to create a column of color against which the pink cardigan could stand out. The skirt has bright pink and peachy-coral flowers rather than this dark muted rose pink, but I thought it coordinated well enough even if it didn't strictly speaking match the skirt's print. And I think the dusky rose color looks fabulous with the navy! The combination looks like it was drawn directly from the Soft Summer color palette.

OOTD 6/1/24

I belatedly realized that I wore this same cardigan with a print skirt for the previous SIA challenge as well, but with black and teal instead of navy. So let's just call this outfit a cardigan restyle rather than me accidentally repeating an item. It's great when a color looks good with black or navy, and I think this soft deep rose tone would work well with any neutral color, actually.

I am excited that we have entered necklace layering season (the part of the year that isn't scarf season) just as I have finished up making a bunch of seed bead wrap necklaces to coordinate with various skirts in my wardrobe. I added a 3 wrap silver-tone chain with the seed bead necklace and layered this with a shorter necklace from Christopher & Banks featuring beaded rings on two strings of snake chain.

I continued the dark blue theme with these somewhat dressy flats in a "match your skirt/pants" navy neutral.

Outfit total cost per wear (not including earrings and bracelets, which I don't track): $5.98. This is pretty good considering that the cardigan and beaded ring necklace still have relatively few wears (10 and 6, respectively).

My all-DIY daily bracelet stack is based on an old favorite paper bead bracelet set I made to coordinate with my blush rabbit sweater. I thought the aloe-mint and light pink colors were a nice match to two of the accent colors in the skirt's print. The top 3 supplemental bracelets are also older stone bead pieces I've shared many times but the bottom 2 glass bead bracelets - mint disk beads and striped light pink beads - are more recent creations. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}

My DIY earrings, made to coordinate with the paper bead bracelet set, are one of my very favorite pairs to date. I used soft pink glass pearls and mint faceted drops to represent the two main colors of the bracelets, and added a gorgeous rabbit bead to repeat the sweater's motif. These earrings and both dangly and rabbit-y, but lightweight, which is a win in my book.

Unless you're a beader in the US, you probably didn't hear that the American company Tierra Cast closed their doors at the end of last year, which was widely regarded as heartbreaking across the American jewelry making community. They were the premier supplier of high quality metal jewelry findings, all made in the US. I personally have found their charms to be especially lovely. When I had the opportunity to purchase gorgeous silver-tone rabbit beads at $1 each several months ago, I didn't mess around. I ordered 20 beads. These are the nicest rabbit beads I've seen (and you know I've seen my share), and I have no doubts about my ability to use them all (and later wish I had more!). I love that the rabbits are sweet but naturalistic rather than cartoonishly cute, which is an unusual combination.

Now for the best part of the post: sharing the Rabbit Imitating Art selection! This time I wasn't looking for any particular size/color/breed of rabbit, but for some reason, this sweet little mini lop with the pretty black-and-white broken fur pattern called my name.

It's good that the flowers our painting's woman collected weren't poisonous because the mini lop jumped onto her lap and ate all of them...plus the basket itself! (It was clearly an untreated wicker basket.) After this impressive display of appetite, the bunny settled down comfortably, ready for some pets. And who could deny such a wonderful rabbit this well-deserved attention? "Oh thank you, sweetie," the woman says as she pets the rabbit. "I really wasn't feeling like getting up from my chair and painstakingly arranging those flowers as perfectly as Mama would require. But I did SO enjoy getting help from the new gardener's assistant in deciding which particular flowers to pick for my bouquet. Let me tell you all about it..."

Artwork "improved" with rabbit

Thanks for joining me today for this Style Imitating Art + Rabbit Imitating (and Improving) Art post! I'm sorry I was late with the post this week but time got away from me.

To see other outfit interpretations of this artwork, check out the review on Marsha in the Middle.

Do you like to wear floral prints? Do you have any "wallpapery" floral prints in your closet? Would you wear floral print and stripes together? Would you rather arrange flowers or pet a rabbit/cat/dog/etc.?

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