Opera and art of fashion: Julie Anna Lewis and her opera-scarves

Fashion and Opera always make a winning combination! The American visual artist Julie Anna Lewis agree on that.

After having won numerous awards for her work as graphic designer, since 2009 Julie Anna has been enchanted by watercolor, oil and acrylic painting. Eventually arriving at her preference of the quick and satifying results of acrylic. Julie loves the textures she applies with artist pastes and mediums and enjoys layering with glazes to produce intricate works on canvas.

In recent years, the artist has refined a unique style based on her theories of Sculpted Text and Sculpted Music.”It is a direct influence from my career as a graphic designer, my love for typography and the world’s love for classical music and literary arts. Combined on canvas with paint, I feel I have found something very moving to me and to those who view my art. The text or music within my artistic subject matter is from beloved literature, novels, poems, song lyrics, music.”

Touch, bringing memories and feelings to light, these are the watchwords of Lewis’s art that find a perfect ally in music. And some of the most important American Opera Houses have noticed this particular inspiration and have commissioned the artist a collection of heavy silk satin scarves and stoles, embellished with opera-themed patterns.

Commissioned by The Metropolitan Opera House in New York, Julie Anna Lewis invented La Boheme scarf .
The design includes many meaningful motifs such as the lost key, the bottle of wine for the landlord and an extinguished candlestick. Mimi’s embroidered roses and lilies are not forgotten from her aria in Act 1 “Mi Chiamano Mimi”. The design style is a lovely French-style Toile de Jouy that features lover’s engravings, a 1898 music book cover & music sheets from the opera La Bohème, along with Giacomo Puccini’s signature.

For Santa Fe Opera, Julie Anna designed a scarf inspired by Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers and a scarf dedicated to Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. This is a scarf featuring music sheet butterflies to wear to the opera or anywhere. Hand-printed on luxurious silk satin in blues, turquoise, blacks, purples, oranges and yellows.

The collection includes many other silk creations such as the one dedicated to Verdi’s La Traviata: a lovely scarf featuring the aria “Sempre Libera” music score, Brindisi goblets of champaign, Violetta’s image hidden in a cameo locket and of course, Violetta’s Camellia flower! 

Egyptian glyths and colunm designs, in stone, golds and blue colors, set the background for Verdi’s opera, Aida. The music score “Celeste Aida”, which tells of the love Radamès has for Aida is included in this intricate design. The Ethiopia and Egyptian warriors go to battle overhead, while in the center is our lovers, Radamès and Aida, sealed alive in a tomb in each other’s arms. This silk twill scarf is fantastic!

All Julie Anna Lewis designs are copyrighted in USA and Europe. To discover the other elegant creations, you can visit and even buy on the site https://www.julieannalewis.com/scarves

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