TBT: Garçon à la pipe

I was searching through the Artfully Awear archives, and I found this gem from 2011.  Picasso's Rose Period has always been my favorite (particularly the harlequins), so one afternoon I made a flower crown, borrowed a wooden pipe from my dad, and posed as one of the most expensive paintings ever sold at auction.  See my original post here. #tbt

MAGRITTE'S MYSTERY

The first warm day of the year is such a teaser. Even though I knew the mid-'70s would only last for a short time, it was difficult to imagine going back to cold weather after a balmy afternoon on the beach. At least it was a reminder that spring is on its way!

Since I wanted to take advantage of the springlike temperature and proximity of the ocean, my outfit was inspired by Belgian Surrealist, René Magritte.

Many of Magritte's (1898-1967) thought-provoking Surrealist paintings have become popular culture icons, like the one below.

He was interested in the juxtaposition of reality and fantasy, and championed a more representational style of painting than other Surrealists, like Dalí and Miró.

One of his primary artistic devices was placing ordinary objects in unexpected environments, causing the viewer to think about the object in a new way.

Though many of Magritte's works seem as though they should have a narrative explanation, he characterized them as "unknowable", like a mystery the viewer has to solve but that there exists no real answer.

"Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist." --René Magritte

My response to Magritte's work was to pair both menswear-inspired and nautical pieces with a beach setting, completed by the green apple necklace which represents a recurring theme in his work.

I'm wearing a Uniqlo tee, PRPS jeans, thrifted woven leather suspenders, Literature Noir chalkstripe boyfriend blazer, Marc bag, H&M socks and necklace, and Matiko wedges.

[Magritte images from kazucopy.wordpress.com, hubpages.com, just-take-a-boo.blogspot.com, and gipsygeek.wordpress.com, respectively.]

SERGE DE NIMES

Denim is one of the most versatile textiles in production. Originally manufactured for the U.S. in Nîmes, France, it was called serge de Nîmes, which has been shortened into the colloquial term denim. As far as fashion is concerned, denim is always in style, and the average American owns 7 pairs of jeans.

Although the use of denim is widespread in the fashion industry, it was originally intended as a textile for laborers' garments. One of my favorite artworks addresses the issue of worker's clothing and its associations with this country's complicated industrial history.

Artist Ann Hamilton created this mound of denim for an installation in 1991, and it was shown again in 2007 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It consists of 18,000 pieces of used blue work clothes on a pallet and a seated participant actively erasing text from a book.

Hamilton's goal with this work, called Indigo Blue, was to encourage the rewriting of American history to include the importance of laborers in our country's industry. It spotlights the millions of working class citizens who made our country what it is today but have rarely been featured in accounts of U.S. history.

You can find some videos of Hamilton discussing Indigo Blue here.

For my Indigo Blue look, I wore a Marcel Dachet for Bergdorf Goodman denim dress and Christian Siriano for Payless shoes.

I plan on wearing this dress often--it's like a blank slate for colorful accessories. For its debut, however, I decided to keep it simple with these tonal pumps.

[Indigo Blue images from sfmoma.org.]