Style a Colorful Skirt and Cardigan Combo for SIA: Leader of the Luddites

Shelbee at Shelbee on the Edge is the curator for this round of Style Imitating Art (SIA), and she selected the hand-colored etching "The Leader of the Luddites" published in 1812 by the printmaking firm Walker & Knight by an anonymous artist. As she put it: "While I don't condone violence of any sort, I still love what this illustration represents...opposition to technology taking away human jobs...I also love that this image offers some fun sartorial inspiration as well!" I admit that I was initially stumped by this odd satirical artwork, but I ended up with an outfit I really liked.

source: https://marshainthemiddle.com

I focused on the leader figure, and knowing I couldn't replicate his outfit, I chose three elements from it for my interpretation:

(1) The color scheme of turquoise with black and red;

(2) The flowy dress silhouette; and

(3) The scarf.

With this in mind, I picked out my first two pieces:

(1) My dress collection is extremely limited, so I knew I'd need to wear a skirt instead. This thrifted Lane Bryant turquoise t-shirt knit skirt with a full silhouette had the drapey pleated vibe of the leader's dress and was a good match to its background color.

(2) Although his scarf appears to be solid red, I needed my scarf to bring together the turquoise/black/red color scheme so I chose this vintage (1970s) Roberta di Camerino scarf featuring the distinctive twisted belt "R" logo in one corner (that I had scored for a mere $4.90 at the thrift store in 2020). The scarf features hand-rolled edges, which felt in keeping with the "made by hand, not by machine" ethos of the Luddite movement. By happy coincidence, the twisted belt logo also looks an awful lot like the ribbon that the guy is wearing around his head and the striped motifs mimic his striped...socks (?).

To keep that flowy vibe going, I topped the skirt with a drapey cardigan - another thrifted Lane Bryant piece in a lightweight t-shirt knit and almost exactly the same color as the skirt (just a tad lighter). I thrifted the skirt in March 2019 and the cardigan in October 2018 with no expectation that I would be able to wear the two pieces together...which indeed I did not do until this outfit! The volume-over-volume combination is not for everyone's style, especially those who are very concerned about looking "frumpy" and the like, but I found that the drapey quality of the thin t-shirt knits kept the outfit from looking crazy oversized or voluminous. Visible skin on the forearms and lower legs also adds structure to the look. I would normally have tucked in my black tank top, but in interpreting this artwork, I chose to leave it hanging long for a more "dress-like" flow like the Luddite leader is wearing.

OOTD 7/14/26

To tie the square scarf, I laid it out flat, then picked two corners opposite each other to roll; I rolled up each corner to the center, then folded it in half to create a bias rolled tube of fabric that I could then wrap around my neck and secure with a square knot. (The turquoise blue color of the scarf is darker than the cardigan and skirt, but I still thought it looked good; the three pieces together have a "darker and lighter versions of this same color" thing going that feels intentional.) To break up the expanse of solid black on my top, I added a long tassel necklace in gold.

To repeat the red color from the scarf and gold color from the necklace, I popped on some red leather flats with gold buckle detailing (which in my mind also related well to the belt logo on the scarf).

To keep the "handmade" vibe going, I put together an all-DIY bracelet stack for my outfit. I picked out a paper bead bracelet set with red and warm blue colors as the basis for my stack (page to bead details here). I supplemented it with a variety of glass and wood beaded bracelets in red and medium to dark aqua colors. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}

Of course, I needed to finish my look with handmade earrings, and I thought I could represent the polka dots from the leader's dress with round beads on a round hoop. I bookended the red flats with these red-glass-pearl-on-gold-hoop earrings (see design #2 here) and red lipstick. My glasses fell perfectly into the color scheme with their black-and-gold frames.

Now for my favorite part of every SIA post: sharing our Rabbit Imitating Art selection!

Today's rabbit photo is one of the oldest in my archives, dating back to 2016 or earlier and taken with an old phone that gave the image the muted sepia-tinged vibe of a vintage snapshot...which I thought would help our bunny fit into the yellow-washed artwork. Fittingly, our rabbit is an English lop (yes, it is from England), one of the oldest domestic breeds of rabbit and the first breed of lop-eared rabbit to be engineered by humans through selective breeding (later breeds include the French lop and the Holland lop). The English lop debuted circa the 1820s, first shown at agricultural shows, later at exhibitions of fancy rabbit breeds starting in the 1840s, from where it spread around the world.

It is not your imagination that this rabbit has extremely long ears! Though many breeds of long-eared rabbits exist in the world, the English lop has the longest, floppiest ears of them all - up to 79 cm (31") in length from tip to tip (including both ears and the top of the skull). An adult English lop's ears usually drag on the ground when the bun is hopping or relaxed, and they naturally pool around the rabbit's feet because they are so long and heavy. These long ears would be impractical for a wild species of rabbit, but since English lops are meant to be kept strictly indoors, they do not run the same risks of damaging their ears on rough outdoor terrain or in extremely cold temperatures.

In common parlance, a "Luddite" is often used to describe someone who rejects new technology. Most historians believe that the Luddite movement from 1811 to 1816 in England was motivated by skilled textile workers and weavers who, facing harsh economic conditions during the Napoleonic Wars, protested against the automation of textile equipment that they believed would undercut standard labor practices and ultimately destroy their jobs. But recently discovered materials show that while Luddites did organize into secret factions that raided factories at night to smash machines and to set fire to mills, factories, and the private homes of wealthy factory owners, the folklore around the supposed Luddite leader Ned Ludd (aka Edward Ludd aka General Ludd aka King Ludd aka Captain Ludd) was completely misunderstood by those who broke machines in his name!

According to popular lore, Ned Ludd was a weaver's apprentice in 1779 who, in a fit of rage, took a hammer and smashed two mechanized stocking frames into pieces. No one knows why he was so angry: criticized for doing poor work? whipped by his master? In truth, it was nothing so commonplace.

You may recall that Joan of Arc was visited by angels and virgin saints...and a Rabbit of Unusual Size. She was not alone in seeing visions of strangely sized rabbits. Young Ned Ludd too was beset by an eerie apparition - a rabbit with extremely long ears...nay, unnaturally long ears...who claims to have traveled from the future when rabbits have developed into new and amazing shapes and sizes! The vision of this long-eared wonder dazzled Ned Ludd's mind, but when he tried to describe this experience to other people, no one believed him. He was (as Wikipedia describes it) "taunted by local youths." In a fit of frustration, he broke some machines...and thus was a legend born.

Artwork "improved" with rabbit. "Why are you setting fire to that building? Look at this rabbit!!"

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 Shelbee on the Edge.

Do you ever wearing a matching skirt and cardigan combo? Or other "suit"-like combo put together from separate pieces that happen to share a color? Do you ever wear the volume-over-volume formula? How would you interpret this outfit? Had you heard of the Luddites before? Are you surprised by how many historical figures have been visited by supernatural rabbit visions?

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