World Art Day is celebrated each year on 15th April – the birthdate of Leonardo da Vinci (born in 1452). Each year a theme is chosen for the day, with this year’s theme being “Art is good for the health.”
Art is a huge influence on fashion, and I’ve started an “Art & Fashion” series highlighting this – the first one was actually focused on da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
The crossover of art and fashion takes many forms. Some fashion designers collaborate directly with artists – for example Elsa Schiaparelli with Salvador Dali, or Alexander McQueen with Damien Hirst. Other times, particular scenes and motifs from artwork are recreated, such as the melting clocks from Dali’s The Persistence of Memory being brought to life as the Cartier Crash watch.
Probably the most familiar is the direct printing of artwork on clothes and accessories, such as Vivienne Westwood’s famous François Boucher corsets and Jean Paul Gaultier’s The Birth of Venus prints that got him sued by the Uffizi Gallery for improper usage. This dress from the Resort 2021 collection by Lanvin features artwork by Erté.
Of course, many fashion pieces, especially haute couture, are artworks themselves.
April 16th is Save the Elephant Day, which was started to promoted awareness about threats to elephants. The below socks from Bare Kind can help, as 10% of the profits will go towards elephants.
If you want to be totally on theme for the day, here’s some elephant idioms you may or may not know about:
An Elephant in Cairo: related to computer programming, this is a piece of data deliberately added to ensure that a search algorithm will terminate.
White Elephant: something expensive and extravagant but ultimately useless.
The Elephant in the Room: a problem that is obvious but is being ignored.
Eat an Elephant One Bite at a Time: breaking a big job down into smaller parts.
Kill a Fly with an Elephant Gun: taking excessive measures to tackle something relatively minor.
See Pink Elephants: to hallucinate, usually due to being drunk.
Bare Kind Bamboo Socks
Lu Bella
International Bat Appreciation Day aims to raise awareness about the importance of bats to natural ecosystems. Just like with the elephant socks, 10% of the profits of the socks below will go to saving bats.
If you prefer something a bit more sparkly to show your love of bats, Annoushka have a ridiculously cute 18ct gold bat pendant with rubies for eyes and black diamonds all over its wings.
Bare Kind Bamboo Socks
National Velociraptor Awareness Day falls on 18th April and was created in 2013. Probably the most famous velociraptors are those in Jurassic Park, although since then, a lot has changed about what we know about them.
They actually had feathers rather than reptile skin, and they hunted alone rather than in packs.
To celebrate the day, how about organising a movie marathon, or visiting a museum?
National Garlic Day on 19th April celebrates this spice originating from Central Asia and northeastern Iran. It’s not just used in cooking and medicine – garlic is also tied to certain beliefs and lore. Dreaming of garlic in the house is believed to bring good luck, and garlic is associated with warding off vampires and demons.
I’ve chosen this image of Bella Hadid at the Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood AW2020 show – her necklace was actually made of real garlic bulbs, and had to be handled with lots of care backstage as it was so fragile. The show itself was about good prevailing over evil, and in fact there were other (equally delicate) garlic pieces used.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find any shopping ideas directly related to garlic, but I thought perhaps you’d need to refresh your home after cooking with garlic to celebrate the day – so how about some candles based on popular Tom Ford scents? I regularly use Tom Ford perfumes – Tobacco Vanille and Tuscan Leather are my favourites, and I’ve got Fucking Fabulous on my wishlist too.
Wear Pyjamas to Work Day probably began as a day to relax after Tax Day in the US, which falls on April 15th, but nobody’s really sure. You don’t need to wear your pyjamas to work, but pyjama-style clothes would do instead if you want to celebrate.
Otherwise, you could invest in some beautiful new pyjamas, like this set from La DoubleJ or slip dress from Versace.
