Long before the 3D movie came out, Lewis Carol's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass provided me with a template for how I should wear clothing. Alice's innocent wonder of the ever changing world around her continues to inspire the way I view life and style. When you stop being amazed by your surroundings life stops being fun. Alice's little blue dress and head-banded locks create the perfect silhouette for the days when all I want is adventure in the great wide somewhere.
Las Meninas by Velazquez also inspires child-like wonderment and delicacy. Fashion today is so much about being tough, defensive, sexy. Summer is a break from school, a break from defending my intelligence, a break from being a complete grown up. Las Meninas brings me back to a time of aristocracy, naivete, and delicate extravagance. The young Infanta Margarita poses for a painting, surrounded by maids, body guards, and extravagance far too excessive for her young age. I love this painting because it is a painting of a portrait in progress. Margarita's demeanor of a little girl trying (and succeeding by blood alone) to appear important enough to be immortalized in paint reminds me of the days i dressed up in my mother's panty hoes and pearly and pretended to be important. Las Meninas reminds me that we're never too old to play dress up, never too young to be insignificant.
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