Style Imitating Art | Puppeufee (or, The Circus) by Zelda Fitzgerald

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and Marsha of Marsha in the Middle. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as presenter, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the presenter by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the presenter will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join either! In fact, you don’t even have to join but you can still use the art to inspire an outfit just for the sake of trying something different. If you want to share your inspired outfit, we invite you do so on Instagram or any other social media platform that you prefer. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Shelbee, or Marsha or use #TeamLOTSStyle and #StyleImitatingArt so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

This Week’s Presenter

It was my turn to choose our artwork. I had absolutely nothing in mind for this round. But I just finished watching Z: The Beginning of Everything, which is a 2015 period drama about the lives of author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda (Sayre) Fitzgerald. After learning that Zelda was an underrated yet accomplished artist, I decided to feature one of her paintings for this round. 

I chose her 1945 painting, Puppeufee (or, The Circus). It is not my favorite of her works, but I like that the colors are Christmasy for a December outfit but the subject matter is not holiday related. There are also a lot of other colors, patterns, and images to draw outfit inspiration from. I wasn’t sure if this would be an easy or a difficult challenge, but it was certainly a fun prompt nonetheless! 

The Artwork

Puppeufee (or, The Circus) by Zelda Fitzgerald

About the Artist: Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald

On July 24, 1900, in Montgomery, Alabama, Zelda Sayre was born, the youngest of six children to prominent lawyer, politician, and judge Anthony Dickinson Sayre and his wife Minerva Buckner “Minnie” Machen Sayre. Her mother named Zelda after a Roma heroine who appeared in various mid-19th century novels. With a doting mother, Zelda was a spoiled child; however, her father was a very strict and remote man who Zelda described as “a living fortress.” Scholarly historians have speculated that Zelda was sexually abused by her father but no evidence of incest has ever surfaced.

Zelda was a born into an influential and prominent Southern clan that were slave owners before the Civil War. Her ancestors include a Confederate general and leader of the Ku Klux Klan movement. As outspoken supporters of lynching, her uncle and father helped to usher in the racially segregated Jim Crow period in the American South. In the post-Civil War years, the Sayre family employed at least a dozen domestic servants, most of them African-American, adding to the idleness of Zelda’s youth. As the privileged youngest child of a wealthy family, Zelda spent her childhood taking ballet lessons, dancing, and enjoying the outdoors. Because everything was done for her, she never became accustomed to domestic responsibilities.

In 1914, Zelda entered Sidney Lanier High School in Montgomery, Alabama, as a bright but disinterested student. Although she continued her ballet lessons throughout high school, she also drank gin, smoked cigarettes, and spent lots of time flirting with boys. She was once quoted in a newspaper article saying that all she cared about was “boys and swimming.” As she pushed boundaries as a teenager, Zelda developed a passion for attention and continued to actively challenge societal conventions. For example, she wore a flesh colored bathing suit to fuel rumors that she liked to go swimming in the nude. Zelda’s antics shocked her community of dainty, docile, and well-mannered Southern women. In fact, her social ruin was only prevented because of her father’s standing in the community.

The caption of her 1918 high school graduation yearbook photo reads, “Why should all life be work, when we all can borrow? Let’s think only of today, and not worry about tomorrow.” This quote gives me all the vibes of the most spoiled of Southern belles, Miss Scarlett O’Hara, who said things like, “I can’t think about that right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about that tomorrow,” and “After all, tomorrow is another day!” Zelda Sayre was voted “prettiest” and “most attractive” by her senior class at Sidney Lanier High School.

In July 1918, recent high school graduate Zelda met aspiring novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald at the Montgomery Country Club. Fitzgerald, who recently dropped out of Princeton University to join the U.S. Army in the midst of World War I, was stationed at Camp Sheridan near Montgomery awaiting deployment orders to the Western Front. Fitzgerald had recently been dumped by his first love, Chicago heiress and socialite Ginevra King, and began courting the women of Montgomery. Zelda reminded him of Ginevra and quickly became the sole object of his infatuation.

Although Zelda didn’t believe him at first that he would become a famous writer, Scott redrafted certain characters in his works to resemble Zelda “in more ways than four.” He even went on to use Zelda’s words that she had written in her journals in his future novels.

The young couple’s courtship was interrupted in October 1918 when Scott was sent to Camp Mills, Long Island, New York, awaiting orders to France. However, the war ended the following month and Scott returned to Montgomery, resuming his courtship of Zelda. While neither was a virgin at the time, Zelda and Scott consummated their “sexually reckless” relationship that December.

On February 14, 1919, Scott was discharged from military service and headed north to New York City to establish himself as a writer. Shortly thereafter Zelda had a pregnancy scare and the couple continued to write to each other. By March 1920, Scott had sent Zelda his mother’s ring and the couple became engaged. Over the next four months, Scott unsuccessfully attempted to get his writing published. Zelda became worried that he would not be able to support the lifestyle she was accustomed to and she briefly broke off their engagement. This series of events sent Scott into an episode of intense despair and suicidal ideations which prompted him to carry a revolver on a daily basis.

However, on March 26, 1920, Scott’s first novel was published, prompting Zelda’s arrival in New York City on March 30. The couple was married a few days later in a small ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on April 3, 1920. With his newly published book becoming an instant hit, the young Fitzgeralds were quickly launched into the spotlight and became the poster children of the overindulgence that kicked off the Jazz Age. To their delight, the young couple was depicted in New York newspapers as the enfants terribles of the hedonistic Jazz Age, cautionary examples of youth and excess as they were evicted from hotels for their behavior and became widely known for their over-drinking and raucous partying.

In February 1921, as Scott struggled with writing his second novel, Zelda became pregnant. On October 26, 1921, their daughter Frances “Scottie” Fitzgerald, was born in Scott’s hometown of Saint Paul, Minnesota. By 1927, Scott’s alcoholism had become quite severe and Zelda’s mental health was diminishing quickly as her behaviors became more erratic. Over the next few years, Zelda would make various attempts to take her own life. On April 23, 1930, she was admitted to a mental hospital for observation. She was first diagnosed with schizophrenia, but later scholars would suggest that Zelda had bipolar disorder. After her first stay in a mental hospital, Zelda would spend the rest of her life in and out of mental institutions while her marriage continued to deteriorate until Scott’s death on December 21, 1940. Although he had been sober for over a year, F. Scott Fitzgerald died from a heart attack, likely caused from decades of alcohol abuse, at the age of 44.

After 15 years in and out of mental hospitals and over a decade of electroshock therapy treatments, Zelda checked into her final institution in November 1947, Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. On the night of March 10, 1948, just a few days after Zelda was told she could be discharged, a fire started in the kitchen of the hospital. The fire spread through the dumbwaiter shaft as Zelda was sedated and locked in a fifth floor room awaiting electroshock treatment. Nine women including Zelda Fitzgerald died in the fire. Zelda was identified by her dental records and one of her slippers. She was 47 years old.

From the mid 1930s onward, Zelda spent much of her time in mental institutions as her mental health continued to significantly deteriorate. During her institutionalization, she continued pursuing her artistic ambitions of writing, drawing, and painting. In March 1934, Scott arranged the first exhibition of Zelda’s artworks but the show was viewed as a critical failure. It wasn’t until years after her death that Zelda’s art and writing would be appreciated. So let’s appreciate it now, nearly 80 years after her death!

About the Art: Puppeufee (or, The Circus)

“Puppeufee”, also called “The Circus”, is a 1945 gouache painting on paper by Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald. The painting is known for its whimsical subject matter which combines absurdity and beauty in a fairy tale inspired image portraying dancers and other circus characters. The painting measures 11.5 x 18.75 inches (29.2 x 46.6 cm).

I can’t find the specific location of this artwork although it does appear that it may be housed at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Other than that, there aren’t very many details about this painting to be found online.

About My Outfit

I was drawn to this colorful painting because of the very Christmassy color palette. I wanted to choose a piece that reflected the holiday season without being overtly Christmas and this painting really hit the mark. However, it did create somewhat of a challenge for styling an outfit inspired by it.

Once upon a time, I had a lovely whimsical dress with a circus print that would have worked really well for this artwork, but I have since chopped it up and used it in some raggery project or other. The dress was green and white striped with the circus motif in pinks and reds so maybe this newer outfit was a better interpretation after all. Anyway, there will be no mourning for discarded clothing! I loved the dress once but it no longer fit my body or my personal style aesthetic so it has been upcycled into something else.

Focusing on the jester character wearing a black tunic with gray/white leggings and red shoes, I built the base of my outfit with a basic black tee shirt, gray leggings, and my red cowgirl boots. At first, I had intended to style this sleeveless burgundy and white striped button down as a vest over my black tee, but when I put it together, it didn’t look so good.

Since red and white stripes are so prominent in the painting, I wanted to incorporate stripes into my outfit somehow so I went with an old red and white striped scarf. However, the stripes are so thin that they are barely visible and not nearly feisty enough to reflect the vivacity of the stripes in the artwork. So I added my very bold black and white striped kimono robe which screams circus vibes.

To top it all off with some extra wintery warmth, I wore my new Festi Fringe Cardigan in a red, black, white, and gray print that is arranged in a stripey pattern. The various prints on my sweater really capture the whimsy and chaos of the circus scene even if the colors are bit drabber than the brightness of the painting.

For accessories, I layered two long thrifted necklaces in gray and red with a shorter quartz stone necklace and wore my large feather earrings, gray fingerless mitts, and my light gray chenille fedora. It turned out to be such a wonderful holiday outfit that I have already worn it three times in three weeks. I will likely be wearing this cozy cardigan on repeat all winter long!

I hope you have enjoyed this round of Style Imitating Art. If you want to play along and be featured with your own outfit inspired by this colorful painting in my gallery post on Wednesday, December 3, 2025, be sure to submit your photos to me at shelbeeontheedge@gmail.com by 10:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, December 2, 2025. In the meantime, be sure to check out Salazar’s interpretation of “Autumn” as well as Marsha’s take on it. 

Until then, happy styling, my friends!

Keeping it on the edge, 

Shelbee