Artist Inspired Outfits

So this post is actually a couple of months old, but I completely forgot to post it at the time. I hope you all enjoy it!

Taobao brands love to throw the odd curve ball now and then. It usually gets given a lot of 'ha ha' reactions when it gets posted to Lolita Updates on Facebook and you will get a few who love it enough to actually go ahead and buy it.

My initial reaction to seeing Vincent Van Goat by Cherry Bomb was to laugh. The idea of an artist depicted as a goat seemed like such a bizarre thing to put on a lolita dress! And yet, I find it weirdly endearing. It could certainly be worked in to a serious lolita outfit without looking too comical. It also reminded me of the Juliette et Justine painting dresses, but this dress is a much different take on art inspired lolita.

As I saw this dapper goat dressed as Vincent van Gogh I wondered to myself how various different artists would look if they were to wear lolita. So just for fun I have created outfit collages inspired by different artists. This is how I imagine the artists themselves would want to wear lolita.

Degas

I couldn't do this post without including my absolute favourite artist (there is a new exhibition in London on his work soon and I am very excited!). As he painted a lot of ballerinas, that was the obvious direction to go in here. I initially was going to do an outfit with the Emily Temple Cute Toe Shoes JSK, but I didn't feel the available colours truly reflected Degas. His colours are more soft and muted. So I decided to choose a dress that is soft and floaty with a lot of movement to represent the dancers. Therefore, I went with this Juliette et Justine chiffon dress. The rest was relatively simple. A lot of the ballerinas in his works feature floral hair pieces, but nothing too big (they have to be suitable for dancing in, after all). The tights may not be very practical, but I thought plain tights were a bit too bare.

Klimt

I will be honest here- I have never been a fan of Klimt, but I happened to stumble across the dress in this collage at random. When I saw it I instantly thought of the backgrounds of a lot of Klimt pieces. His work features a lot of black and gold. There is also a lot of swirls and trees. I tried to imagine what his muse from The Kiss would wear. For a Klimt outfit I think an up do is best for the hair and maybe some coral lipstick.

Roy Lichtenstein

The first of two Pop Art artists I am looking at today. Lichtenstein's works feature loads of polka dots. Dolly Dot felt like the most obvious dress choice. I tried to keep the retro and kitsch vibe going throughout the outfit. I think the key thing here is bold, yet simple. And lots and lots of dots!

L. S. Lowry

I included Lowry because I studied him when I was in primary school! For those of you who don't know his work, he is from Manchester and he painted a lot of industrial scenes. The figures in his paintings were also known for wearing clogs, hence the inclusion of them. He used a lot of muted, neutral tones and browns. As business men in suits feature a fair bit, it seemed fitting to include a bowler hat and bow tie! I was going to include a briefcase as well, but I was unable to find one that matched well enough. Hopefully you get the general gist of what I was aiming for!

Monet

I remember when Baby's Labyrinth print first came out that I instantly thought of Monet when I saw it. It features a scene by water and the details are a little bit blurry ( which I feel reflected his short-sightedness in later life). This outfit was inspired by what I felt a young maiden walking through his paintings would be likely to wear. I imagined a massive floppy bergere hat, a parasol to protect them from the sun and extravagant sleeves. Also, I finally found a pair of sax blue shoes which are not tea parties, so that was a personal achievement as well!

Warhol

Finally, I decided to do an outfit for Andy Warhol. I think Warhol would have leaned more towards Otome. You can't really have a Warhol outfit without a cool beret and thin turtleneck. The look is very 60's art scene. Whilst fruit-wise Warhol is probably better connected to bananas, alas this is not a theme which appears in Japanese fashion very much! So I took the safer option of going for cherries. The dress features fruit cans, which is a small nod to Warhol's famous soup can work.

So that is what I came up with. I tried to do artists which were a bit different to the typical painting dresses we are used to seeing in the fashion. My favourite is the Warhol outfit (I bet you all thought I was going to pick Degas!). Maybe it is because the Warhol outfit could be worn casually and I could see myself actually browsing a gallery whilst wearing it. From time to time you will see smaller indie brands release dresses with famous paintings on them. I purposely didn't go a Van Gogh outfit because a dress with his Starry Starry Night already exists. These are a bit different from your typical Juliette et Justine painting dresses too. But at least there are many different options out there if you wish to pay homage to your favourite artist.