Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Circus Animals in the City . . .

As a Boston local who blogs about design, last night I was invited to a bloggers-only gathering at Designers Circus in Boston. Event organizer, Lisa Strawbridge encouraged me to pull together an outfit of my choosing to create a display. I eagerly agreed to play the game. When I saw something with an animal print design I decided to assemble an entire look using only items that had animal patterns. The challenge was to mix the species and somehow make it all work. I pulled a scarf with a snake-skin pattern and combined it with some tiger and leopard prints and finished it off with a zebra jacket. I kept laughing at myself assuming that this would be "overkill." But then I told myself "They're all creatures who cohabit one jungle, why not?"


Animal prints have been magnets for me for decades. I don't fully understand why I like them so much. They combine randomness with order and they fuel my wild side at the same time. Since most of the time the colors come from nature's palette they are often muted, too. I decided to do a bit of research about it but realized such a tome would take up enough space for a PhD thesis. Here are some more images from the Designers Circus arrangement I made as well as a link to some additional animal print trend notes from the February 9, 2011 blog posting by Fashionbrilliant.com with their headline: Animal print—fashion trend that has crossed decades.
An upclose shot below shows some accessories that can complete the outfit. Confession: I bought one of those leopard patterned skirts. Couldn't resist. And it's too tight around the waist, but I love it so much I think my desire to prowl around in it is going to motivate me to stick those earbuds in my ears, turn up the music and get my body out into the urban jungle air walking again.


This image and the one below it were on the blog: Fashionbrilliant.com. You can read the article: Animal Print—Fashion Trend that has Crossed Decades if you go to their link