Frida was involved in a circle of Mexican artists and intellectuals who were devoted to the beliefs of the artist Adolfo Best Maugard. In a 1923 book, Maugard wrote about returning Mexican art to its native roots. Paintings he said, should reflect the elements and form of the 19th Century Mexican painters. The group would call this "folkloric" style of painting "Mexicanism" and it would be reinstated back into the world of "fine art". The Americans labeled this movement the "Mexican Renaissance".
In her second self-portrait, "Time Flies", Frida employs the "Mexicanism" style. In this portrait the motif has taken on a very "folkloric" style with vivid and varied colors. Simple cotton peasant clothes replace the sophisticated Renaissance velvet dresses that adorned the subjects of her previous paintings. The jewelry she is wearing is a testament of pre-Columbian and colonial cultural influences. One can only observe from this painting that Frida acknowledges her deep roots in the Mexican culture. To further support her national identity, the dominant color used in this portrait are red, white and green….the colors of the Mexican flag. This self-portrait greatly influenced Frida's search for her own unique style of painting.
To please Diego, Frida would often wear the style of dress typically worn by the native women of the Tehuana region of Mexico. These long floor length richly decorative costumes were not only strikingly beautiful but also enabled her to hide the physical deformity of her right leg. When traveling abroad Frida attracted a lot of attention and even inspired a clothing line in Paris.
In many of Frida's paintings she presented herself wearing this style of attire….probably because it was the style of clothing Diego preferred and she wanted to please him. She first appears in this style of dress in the 1931 double portrait "Frieda and Diego Rivera", a painting that was probably based on a wedding photograph. After that painting there were others that followed: "Self-Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States" (1931), "Tree of Hope, Keep Firm" (1946), "Roots" (1943), and two of her very last paintings in 1954, "Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick" and "Self Portrait with Stalin". In two other paintings, the Tehuana dress appears but Frida is not wearing it: "Memory" (1937) and "My Dress Hangs There" (1933). The painting in which the Tehuana costume plays the most significant role is "The Two Fridas" (1939). In this double self-portrait, painted shortly after her divorce, Frida appears twice. The Frida wearing the Tehuana costume represents the Frida that Diego loved and the other Frida in the European dress is the Frida that has been betrayed by adultery and divorce. Most notably was the 1948 painting "Self Portrait" and the 1943 painting "Self Portrait as a Tehuana" in which she appears in full Tehuana costume.