Styling a Lightweight Shirt Jacket for the Summer to Fall Transition for SIA: Vermeer The Concert

Marsha at Marsha in the Middle is the curator for this round of Style Imitating Art (SIA), and she selected the circa 1663-1666 oil painting "The Concert" by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. She chose this painting because she was "struck by the use of light, shapes, and all the items in the room. There's a lot to choose from in this painting...." And she is not wrong! I might not have known where to start with this one, but...

source: https://marshainthemiddle.com/

...the black and white tile floor (which is probably my favorite classic tile flooring design) immediately captured my attention and brought to mind my black and white check shirt that I like wearing as a lightweight jacket. I thought this would be a perfect layering piece for the summer to fall transition season we are currently in (here in Minnesota, at least).

From there I picked out my color palette, including a maroon tone to represent the orangey/rusty color of the chair back in the middle of a painting and small touches of gold/yellow and dark teal. (As it turned out, I went with a brighter aqua instead of the dark teal, so that's what I've put in my palette below.)

It was astonishingly easy to create a base outfit with that plan in mind. I pulled out my maroon pants (in my favorite "Effortless Stretch" style from Kohls) and a black tank to wear under the check shirt. This is an outfit formula I love for the shoulder seasons. This kind of shirt worn as a jacket layer is so useful as the major heat of summer starts to slip away but true autumn weather has yet to arrive, and I love its ability to follow the temperatures throughout the day: if it's truly warm, take off the button up shirt; if it's warm, roll up the sleeves; if it's cooler, roll down the sleeves. I roll up my sleeves whenever possible so that's how I wore it all day.

OOTD 9/18/2026

Playing on the variety of shapes that Marsha had mentioned, I wore my black polka dot flats with the gold studs, bringing both circles and pyramid shapes into my look (very subtly).

Of course, it would turn out that my photograph of the butterfly scarf highlights the light green rather than aqua in the print, so I guess you'll have to trust me that my scarf includes all the colors of my chosen color palette! (In colder weather, a paisley pashmina in the colors of the Persian rug on the left side of the painting would have been a great choice.) I could pretend that I thought the butterflies represent the musical notes flying free as the musicians play, but no, I just like zoological prints :) When I wear a scarf short and/or to the side like this, I consider it a great opportunity to add a necklace as well. My choice here was the longest necklace in the Rose Garden 3-piece layered necklace set I made in spring 2025. The dark red/maroon beads with gold spacers and chain was the perfect piece to work well with the palette while popping against the black background of my top.

My all-DIY bracelet stack started out with a 3 piece paper bead set I made for a polka dot scarf I have, using the black, white, red/maroon, and aqua color scheme. The dark red/maroon/gold paper bead bracelet (third bracelet down) is a stand-alone bracelet that I used to supplement the other three (see page-to-bead details for it here). Beaded bracelets with maroon pearls + gold spacers, red and black glass, and red AB glass + gold spacers finished off the stack. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}

The top paper bead bracelet in the set (2nd from the top) was made using paper beads from my bead soup; I don't have photographs of the original paper but the black and red colorblocked beads worked well with my other two choices.

The middle paper bead bracelet in the set (3rd from bottom) was made from a terrific illustration in The Economist magazine. They frequently have these drawings at the top of articles, and they are usually 7" wide and about 4-5" tall, which is just enough for me to cut enough triangular strips to make a bracelet. I typically will layer an extra strip or two underneath the focal strip to make the beads a little chunkier. Though I often doctor my strips, I thought these were perfect as-is and just rolled them up. Because the polka dot section is small in scale and is at the ends of the paper, the rolled beads have a wonderful smattering of that dalmatian dog dot look. The bits of color on the people's clothing in the drawing turns up like little bits of confetti among the red sections of the beads.

The third paper bead bracelet in the set (bottom of stack) also came from paper with polka dots, though these were larger, varied in color, and against a black backdrop. If you thought this looked like another Economist drawing of similar dimensions to the one above, you are correct! Fun fact: I use paper from The Economist so much in making paper beads, that when I asked my intern (Google's Gemini AI) about what magazines make the best paper beads, it said The Economist and linked to this blog as the source. And here people think AI doesn't know what it's talking about! :D These beads are another example where I didn't do anything to the strips before rolling them because the colors, design, etc. were already spot-on (haha) for what I wanted my beads to look like.

The earrings are a pair of bead stack with charm dangles (design #7 here) that I made from my bead soup. Although I created them to go with a plaid shirt I wear in the fall, the color palette was also a great choice to wear with this outfit. Gratuitous elephants for the win!

Since I only wore the long beaded chain necklace from my Rose Garden collection, here you can see the three necklaces (plus some extra pearl necklaces I layered in there as well). Coincidentally, this was an outfit I created for a Style Imitating Art challenge last June that I submitted to Marsha but never posted on my own blog (it got lost in the crazy time when I was finishing up my job last summer). So here's that look, about 19.5 months late! (The gallery of style post with everyone's outfits is here.) Note that the maroon pants and the dark red/maroon/gold stand-alone paper bead bracelet both made in appearance in this outfit as well. What can I say - when it works, it works.

OOTD 6/2/25

Now for the main event of every SIA post: our Rabbit Imitating Art selection!

Although there is a rabbit called the Checkered Giant that might have been a good choice here, this absolutely adorable little black and white mini rex rabbit has been patiently waiting for a chance to enter a piece of artwork. He won the role to be in the Katherine Parr portrait, but since the post was canceled by the network (aka me), he didn't get the opportunity to improve art...UNTIL NOW. Please join me in welcoming, at long last, the impossibly soft rabbit with the enigmatic black and white fur pattern: the black broken Mini Rex!

The rabbit had heard so many things about this painter Vermeer, the so-called "Master of Light," that he was at once excited and filled with dread at the idea of entering his artwork. "Master of Light" can sound an awful lot like "Person Who Uses Too Much Light," and that was not an altogether pleasing prospect for a crepuscular animal who prefers the low light of sunrise and twilight. But when he arrived at the scene, he breathed a sigh of relief - most of the painting was actually quite dim, moving through dusky into almost shadowy dark in places.

A very small part of him considered whether he could effectively camouflage himself against the black and white tiled floor...a very, very, very small part. The rest of him, rabbit through and through, knew that the best approach was to hide so he snuck himself into a corner where a Persian rug was hanging down from a table.

He got ready to settle down into a solid loaf position to wait this "there be humans" situation out, but all at once, there was music playing that popped his ears up tall from his head and froze him in place. How lovely that in the late 17th century, the music that dominated homes in the West was what we now call "classical" music, which is the rabbit's preferred type!

Let's all hope no one hits an off note that will turn our rabbit's delight into disapproval.

Artwork "improved" with 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 Marsha in the Middle.

Do you ever wear a button up shirt as a lightweight shirt jacket? Has the weather gotten cooler where you live with the onset of astronomical autumn? Do you have a favorite outfit formula for this time of year?

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