Alphonse Mucha Girl

The other day, Lucy was a bit grumpy (she was in want of a good nap), so I decided to dress her up in a bright and cheerful-looking outfit from my grandma, with a little headband that my friend Joanna made and gave to Lucy. I don't like a lot of headbands that are made for little girls (especially those with huge flowers that look as big as a satellite dish), but I think Joanna makes some very cute ones.

I think I have flowers-in-hair on my mind lately too, because I seem to come across books and calendars with art by Alphonse Mucha wherever I look. It seems like Mucha is really trendy and hip right now. I actually really like the Art Nouveau aesthetic of his art: it's flowy and gauzy and classical (in a timeless, female-personification sort of way) and celebrates nature. Plus, the images of women with flowers decorating their hair remind me of representations of Ozma by J.R. Neill (like this one from The Lost Princess of Oz). I used to think Ozma was the most beautiful creature, and I still regret not having the idea to be her for Halloween until I was an adult. Now I'm too old to convincingly dress up as the girl ruler!

Anyhow, here is my little Lucy, dressed up in her girly, flowery outfit. Perhaps her hair is too wispy and her cheeks are a bit too roundy round to let her pass for a Mucha girl, but I like to think that she fits with the aesthetic in a roundabout way. Here she is paired with a detail of Amethyst (1900) from Mucha's The Precious Stones series:

We love this little girl, even on her grumpy-ish days. She usually greets everyone with a big smile, right from the moment that we pick her up from her crib in her morning. She brings us a lot of joy.