MOTHER | DAUGHTER

When I started Artfully Awear six years ago, I had recently lost my mother to cancer.  Her creativity was my biggest inspiration, and dressing up like artwork became a means of recording her influence in my life; a project that helped me to channel my grief into colorful expression.

Yesterday, I received an email from Rina Flatau, a follower I've never met, who wanted to share some photos of her daughter Abby and her friend that were inspired by Artfully Awear.  In the photos, Abby is dressed beautifully in vintage dresses matching the artwork in their local museum, perfectly encapsulating the message of AA: to either be a work of art or dress like one.  When I saw the photos inspired by my six-year project, I realized that Artfully Awear has come full circle: from my mother teaching me about creative expression, to my endeavor to keep that inspiration alive through my blog, to this poignant record of another mother-daughter collaboration that exquisitely captures the brilliance of dressing like a work of art.

I'm eternally grateful to my mother for nurturing my creativity and teaching me about inspiration through art, and I couldn't be more fulfilled to know that her masterpiece lives on not only in me, but now also in others.

Thank you to Rina Flatau for sharing these photos and for her daughter Abby Flatau for modeling.

Photos by Rina Flatau at the Everson Museum of Art.  Artwork by Morris Louis, William T. Williams, Helen Frankenthaler, and Robert Motherwell.

ART TO WEAR: From the Runway

JC de Castelbajac

Aquilano Rimondi

Antonio Marras 

Beth Postle Alcantara 

Andrew Gn

A friend sent me this editorial from the Financial Times (of all places!) and it immediately sent me into an weeklong swoon.  These beautiful art-inspired ensembles are from various designers, and I love the way that each one used works of art (by Gauguin, Picasso and others) to inform both the shape and embellishments of the garments.  The price points prohibited me from snapping up every ensemble, but my Art to Wear inspiration is overflowing. Which look is your favorite?

Styling by Damian Fox, Photographs by Dima Hohlov

ARTFULLY AWEAR X WAVERLY WORKSHOP

I'm extremely excited to share photos from the first ever Artfully Awear workshop!  A Saturday class through the Waverly program, this particular session was geared toward girls ages 9 - 11, and was hosted by the boutique Torly Kid.  We had a fantastic afternoon learning about inspiration and making our own masterpieces!  If you're interested in attending or hosting an Artfully Awear workshop, email artfullyawear@gmail.com.

Thank you to our wonderfully creative inaugural group of budding artists & designers, to Molly Wills, director of Waverly, and to Torly Kid for providing a space!

We started off by talking about inspiration and our favorite colors.  Each girl got to choose an accessory in her favorite hue and don it in a creative way throughout the class.

To get warmed up, the girls were given blank fashion design templates and asked to draw an outfit inspired by a work of art that we discussed. 

Their creations were completely fabulous, and clearly captured the artistic inspiration!

Waverly program founder Molly Wills models my pom pom jacket, used as inspiration for the big project.

After discussing the artwork that inspired my pom pom jacket, the girls got to work, adorning a purse, a hat, a dress, and sunglasses with colorful pom poms in striking patterns.

After the collection was complete, they posed for photos with their masterpieces!

The pom pom jacket finds another enthusiastic wearer.

They were so proud of their creations, and we had so much fun with this photo shoot! 

All in all,  I was so impressed by the girls' willingness to listen and learn, and they taught me so much more about inspiration and helped me to see things in new ways.  I look forward to the next Artfully Awear workshop!

Photos by Kathy Paciello and myself.

HUMANS OF NEW YORK

I'm honored to be featured in Brandon Stanton's Humans of New York.  I met Brandon on the subway the other evening, and we had a wonderful chat about life's highs and lows, inspiration, and style.  Thank you, Brandon, for the opportunity, and to the HONY community for the words of encouragement!

See the post here.  Buy Brandon's book here.

INSPIRATION: The Modern Woman.

I love this so much; all I want to do is wear an Op Art coat and stand near a Helen Frankenthaler painting.

From The New York Times' The Lively Morgue:

June 26, 1963: Reviving the American Indian art of painting on furs, the Fifth Avenue fur designer Jacques Kaplancommissioned five American artists to paint on his collection to be worn by “the modern woman.” Within two hours, the first coat — painted by Anuszkiewcz, with a geometric arrangement of black dots on white calfskin — was sold to Mrs. Harcourt Amory. Each design came as a complete surprise to Mr. Kaplan, as he allowed the artists “absolute freedom to do whatever they wanted.”

Photo: Mayer Liebowitz, The New York Times 

INSPIRATION: Steven Vasquez Lopez.

If you know me, then you know of my obsession with Staedtler Triplus Fineliners--the perfect marker/pen hybrids that come in a rainbow of colors in an award-winning easel case.  When I came across these mind-blowing works on paper by San Francisco-based Steven Vasquez Lopez, I assumed they were created with thread.  Wrong!  These works are ink on paper, using the dear-to-my-heart Fineliners!  How beautiful are these drawings, and how miraculously does the artist capture the warp and weft of fabric?

Images from cover-magazine.com, design-milk.com, and cescontemporary.com.