Embroidered Jacket Modeled After Matisse Doubles as an Homage to Strong Women

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Embroi­dery is my favorite way of adorn­ing den­im. The mate­r­i­al is so ubiq­ui­tous that adding even a small bit of flair will make the piece stand out. Mapi Bar­tolome, aka MapiBG, has done this by trans­form­ing a jack­et into a recre­ation of a Matisse paint­ing. “Grow­ing up,” she says, “every woman in my fam­i­ly had a poster of  The Gold­fish by Matisse, hang­ing in their homes.”

Mapi stitch­es the paint­ing on the back pan­el of the jack­et, which hap­pens to be a rec­tan­gle that’s in pro­por­tion with the orig­i­nal work. Using thick thread, she sews with a painter­ly approach that cap­tures the ener­gy of Matis­se’s composition.

Mapi’s embroi­dery goes beyond a fash­ion state­ment. “I decid­ed to embroi­der Matisse’s Gold­fish on a den­im jack­et, so I could car­ry the strength of the women in my fam­i­ly every­where I go,” she explains. “And car­ry all the good mem­o­ries we shared, hav­ing the paint­ing watch­ing over us in the background.”

Mapi sells her embroi­dery, includ­ing more embroi­dered den­im, in her Etsy shop.

Mapi Bartolome stitched an embroidered denim jacket based on the Matisse painting The Goldfish. Here’s the original painting:

And here is Mapi’s spectacular stitching!