I Yam What I Yam
Featuring my cool, new pair of painted Vans with a Popeye theme, designed and painted by the talented @abby_custom_kicks, together with a new piece to pair with those fab kicks. Photos by @robert.gelber. I will begin a series of Popeye pieces to keep my new Vans out and about. This is a new dress/coat pattern I draped. I found some vintage Popeye fabric, and paired it with denim and gingham. For the sleeves I used a 3/4 length, vintage design, with a double cuff. I carried over that double layer into the collar. There are two areas of hand embroidered words, some of Popeye’s sayings from his cartoon days. Front pocket, “That’s all I can stands, cause I can’t stands no more.’ And back lower patch, “I Yam What I Yam, An’ That’s All I Yam.’
[A deep dive on Popeye reveals that, among other things, the spinach growers of the USA credited Popeye with a 33 percent increase in U.S. spinach consumption thereby saving the spinach industry in the 1930s. In 1937, Crystal City, Tex., our country's purported spinach capital, erected a statute in the sailor's honor. - RG]
