Tag Archives: Adam & Eve

If you walk across my camera

Be yourself. The world worships the original.

Several years back, Billy Bragg and Wilco did a few albums on Woody Guthrie songs. Guthrie wrote the lyrics but they were never recorded. Guthrie’s daughter allowed Bragg and Wilco to write music and record the songs, Among them was the cryptic Ingrid Bergman.

If you’ll walk across my camera,
I will flash the world your story,
I will pay you more than money
Ingrid Bergman

I thought about her when I chose this background for these pictures, It’s reminiscent of Scandinavian embroidery and rosemaling. A few years back, dinking around on some genealogy website, I discovered she and my dad were cousins – sixth cousins, but still, he would have love to have known that. He admired her so. She once said, “Be yourself. The world worships the original,” which seems fitting since today I am not wearing my mesh head.  Now worship me. 🙂

Continue reading

Details

150803_010150803_009

While big elements of a design may draw our eyes, it is the details that win our hearts. Sure, I love the beautiful color combinations in this floral crown and in this dress, but it is the beautiful butterfly and seed pods and the gorgeous ruching that make them special.

150803_001

I love how this look came together, the bold dress from Valentina E. is a perfect foil for the organic modernism of Kunglers jewelry and cheeky retro-chic of the undo from Vanity Hair – and each item has exquisite attention to detail.
Continue reading

Hair Fair Designers — Alice Demonia

I wore my first Alice Project hair three years ago this month. Alice Project holds a special place in my heart for scaring me the first time I put on an all white hair that I applied a texture to. I am certain there was an involuntary squeak or two before I realized I had not broken it and just had to add the hud and click. We are friends on Plurk and I don’t think I will be telling any deep, dark secrets if I tell you she has a wicked, sardonic sense of humor. And as you can see from her favorite photo, “Nobody parties like Alice Demonia.”

Hair Fair may be closed, but you will be able to find these styles in the stores. I have some remaining profiles to do, so on we go.

Alice Demonia by Vanity Mirror 2013

Nobody Parties Like Alice Demonia by Vanity Mirror – 2013

Alice Project Strawberry_004

Alice Project Strawberry

It’s Only Fashion: What’s the craziest thing you ever did in Second Life? Most exciting? Silliest? Is there a story you can share that captures your Second Life experience?

Alice Demonia: My Second Life has been pretty boring, I think, hahah. When I first started, I did the standard exploring and trolling and laughing at various sex related sims. That’s probably the most excitement I’ve had. Nowadays, I’m notorious for AFKing at my friends’ platforms or sims for days. I tend to just sort of set up wherever I am, if they’re open to that. The Flickr photo I’ve included is the product of one day where I logged in at a friend’s and everyone just decided to start throwing down things around me, lol. Continue reading

Hair Fair Designers — Queue Marlowe

Queue Marlowe self portrait

Queue Marlowe self portrait

Who has not gotten lost in the forests of hair at Analog Dog. From my first visit, I have found the quantity and diversity of hair overwhelming. This comes from a long history of creating hair and from the skill to create hair that stands up to the test of time, changing fads and changing technology.

Any hair lover will be able to recognize Analog Dog hair in an instant. Creator Queue Marlowe’s style is easily recognized in large part because her hair moves. Flexi has gone out of fashion in large part because it cannot be rigged and because people struggle with alpha glitches. Marlowe cannot avoid the rules of alpha layers, but she can stretch those rules and she can outwit them – as anyone who has tried on her hair can see. Analog Dog hair is unique, long may it wave…and bounce.

Analog Dog Psylocibin and Curls_001

Analog Dog Psylocibin with additional curls add on.

It’s Only Fashion: What’s the craziest thing you ever did in Second Life? Most exciting? Silliest? Is there a story you can share that captures your Second Life experience?

Queue Marlowe: Craziest? let’s see… does making hair count? After I swore I’d never do such a silly thing?  Silliest would have to be thinking that making hair was a silly idea. That and spending a week as a ball with wings. Most exciting still goes to designing avant garde costume for a real life virtual museum exhibit. Continue reading

Hair Fair Designers — Leyla Flux

the smell of you

Self Portrait of Leyla Flux 2015

KoKoLoReS Skyler_001

KoKoLoReS Skyler for Hair Fair 2015

It’s Only Fashion: What’s the craziest thing you ever did in Second Life? Most exciting? Silliest? Is there a story you can share that captures your Second Life experience? 

Leyla Flux: Actually, I don’t think I ever did something really crazy in SL. I came here in 2009 for the premiere of my Machinima movie “Saving Grace” at the Machiniplex theatre, which was run by Sol Bartz, better known as Phil Overman Rice in the machinima world. My film was not a Second Life movie but made using the program Moviestorm and footage taken in the game X³ Terran Conflict, and I was asked to do an interview with Overman and the interested viewers at the venue. That was in February 2009. So I stood in front of the audience, knowing next to nothing about SL, in my noobie avatar. It was fun, and frightening at the same time!

Later that year, my film was shown at the Machinima Expo, by then I was already infected with the SL bug and looked much more stylish than in February. If you’re interested, you can watch “Saving Grace” on Vimeo, I’m still very proud of it and sometimes sad about moving away from making machinima, but it just happened. And yes, that time might have been the craziest I had in SL!

KoKoLoReS Silence_005

KoKoLoReS Silence with Glam Affair Skin, Adam & Eve Makeup, Zaara Earrings.

IOF: What drew you to designing hair? When did you start? What are some of the changes that were most significant for you?

LF: Once I found my feet in SL (with the help of Riott Viking and Lainy Voom, both machinimators and creators), I knew I wanted to make things. I started out with system layer clothes, built prim houses. Riott (she did skins) and I had a shop together, and it was going nicely. Then mesh came, everything changed, and I realised that if I wanted to create still, I needed to learn mesh. I admit I was pretty daunted by the idea (I never learned making my own sculpties), so Riott and I decided to give up our store. For a time, my blog was my only creative outlet, then I started to itch for doing something creative again and learned making poses, and finally dabbled in blender. I did tons of Youtube tutorials (thank you, Youtube!) and as I’ve always loved hair, I pretty soon was sure that I wanted to make hair. Cyclic Gearz helped me a lot – if you need blender lessons, she’s great! And around April 2014, I released my first hair.

KoKoLoReS Lilibeth_001

KoKoLoReS Lilibeth

IOF: How did you choose your store name? Does it have a special meaning for you?

LF: I’ve always loved the word “Kokolores”. To me, it’s nonsense in a positve sense, fun, light, entertaining, creative, colourful.

IOF: What is the most challenging part of being a creator in Second Life? What is most rewarding? 

LF: I strive to get better with everything I do, and I’m a perfectionist. Sometimes the real challenge is to let something go! And a big challenge also is that you’re not only a creator, but your own marketing force, too. So much depends on how you market your stuff. A picture can make or break an item. Packaging, making colour huds, doing marketplace all takes up so much time, time I’d rather spend making more hair!
Continue reading

Hair Fair Designers — Anya Ohmai

Anya Ohmai is one of the most beloved creators in Second Life® for very good reasons. All of her creations are full of joy, her playful wit and quirky humor part of their DNA. Despite her unquestionable talent, she remains humble about her skills, seeing herself as a perpetual learner always striving to do better. She is also a person of character whose kindness goes to the marrow. She does not produce a lot of hair; but every year at Hair Fair, there is a crowd of eager fashionistas waiting to see what flight of fancy she has come up with this time.

Ballerina Solitude

Ballerina Solitude by Anya Ohmai

!Ohmai Salon- Ikura_002

Ohmai’s personal style is very soft and feminine, youthful and sweet. The humorous motifs in her creations lead people to adopt a more kawaii sort of style with her hair. I thought it would be a fun challenge to go in the opposite direction, showing that her hair works just as well for high fashion styles. You will have to decide if I succeeded.

It’s Only Fashion: What’s the craziest thing you ever did in Second Life? Most exciting? Silliest? Is there a story you can share that captures your Second Life experience?
Anya Ohmai: The most exciting thing that has happened to me in Second Life was actually one of the first few weeks I joined the grid. I was such an avid explorer back then because I was a blogger, so I made it a point to go to many different sims. I came across this little Japanese cafe owned by Amika Jewell and she was there to greet me as a newbie in Second Life. She asked me what I had wanted to do in Second Life and I told her I wanted to be a creator. Mind you this was an avatar that was a few weeks old, so Amika most likely thought I was completely insane. She did however give me some tips on how to do that and said if I ever made a store, maybe someday we’ll meet again.
Flashback to a year later, I actually met Amika at another Second Life sim and she asked if I had remembered her from back then. She proceeded to tell me how proud she was to see that I finally did make my Second Life wishes come true and that she owned so many of my creations. We proceeded to befriend each other and talk occasionally. I think that was exciting because no one else was too friendly with me when I started out, and for someone to remember me even though its been so long was just a lovely experience!
I think that captures the essence of Second Life’s warmth very well, there is a very human quality to it that you don’t find in many other games. I know that little gesture of kindness she showed me was probably not a big deal, but it did help solidify my love for Second Life.
!Ohmai Salon- Uni_001

!Ohmai Salon Uni. You can change the crown to a band with the accessories HUD.

IOF: What drew you to designing hair? When did you start? What are some of the changes that were most significant for you?
AO: I actually started out thinking I wanted to be a Hair creator. Before Second Life I sold Ball Jointed Doll wigs in real life, so that background actually made me wanna do it in Second Life too. I started with a small store in creators pavilion back in 2009, with 2 hairstyles and a random array of clothes. I stopped doing hair after because I wasn’t very proud of the way I did hair. When I heard about Hair Fair, I thought it’d be awesome if I created hairs once a year for it – just to challenge myself and also try to fulfil the ‘want’ to make hair. Sasy was kind enough to offer me a position in Hair Fair even when i was new and that was an awesome opportunity!
The biggest change from the first time I made hair to the way I do it now would probably be the thought process that goes into it. Hair making works very differently from other creations. You start with a texture that you work around in, whereas other items start with model ling before you bake and texture. Thats a huge struggle in the beginning to switch my brain gears to operate that way. My experience in working with all other types of mesh creation has helped me understand and figure out that process more. I think the work I do for Hair now is more deliberate than it used to be – in the past i’d lay out a bunch of strands and hope it works somehow, now I actually visualize the end product before going into it.
!Ohmai Salon- Tako_001

!Ohmai Salon Tako comes in three pieces, the pony tail, an additional cluster of curls to augment the pony and the tentacles. Each comes with a rigged and unrigged version.

Continue reading

Hair Fair Designers — Tabata Jewell

Tabata

Tabata Jewell Self-portrait 2015

Tabata Jewell is the force behind the iconic hairstyles at Vanity Hair. Her hair creations are instantly recognizable as she takes a highly individual approach, creating stylized and abstract hair styles that are perfect for high fashion looks.

I love realistic hair styles for everyday wear but one of the reasons that Vanity Hair is on my personal list of favorite hair stores is that she goes in the opposite direction, emphasizing form and innovation over realism. For formal wear, haute style looks and high fashion, that abstraction can be perfect.

 

 

_001

Vanity Hair Jumper at Hair Fair 2015

It’s Only Fashion: What’s the craziest thing you ever did in Second Life? Most exciting? Silliest? Is there a story you can share that captures your Second Life experience? 

Tabata Jewell: Hello Cajsa!! If I am completely honest with you, it hasn’t been lots of craziness in my SLin the past years. But my beginnings sure were 😊.

When I started in SL, first thing I did was going to a dance club, I think everybody has done so, it is the fastest way to socialize. I can’t recall the name of the club something like breeze, anyway it was a jazzy music dance club. Everyone was wearing gowns and tuxedos, and there I was with my default avi. When I understood than in order to look half decent I need lindens I went to all the clubs looking for a job. And I finally got hired at one. As a stripper 😊. The name of the club was Moonlight , I earned my first lindens there. Had lots of fun, but back then there was no voice so we had to emote everything. I remember sweating at my computer cause I could not emote and take clothes at the same time. Then the club closed. I was really sad. But I decided I wanted to be a geisha and I enter in the Blue Lotus okiya, was there for 2 years and became a senior maiko. In the mean time I started modeling workshops at Modavia and combines both worlds. I finally decided to go for fashion by the hand of Modavia. Continue reading

Siren Song

150711_007

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls

Continue reading

Hair Fair Profiles: Oblivion by Albakruna

This is the first in a series of profiles of some of the designers at Hair Fair 2015. Albakruna designs fantasy and role play hair, with a strong emphasis on historically accurate hair designs. Her store is named Oblivion.

Hair Designer Albakruna – photo by Albakruna, used with permission.

It’s Only Fashion: What’s the craziest thing you ever did in Second Life? Most exciting? Silliest? Is there a story you can share that captures your Second Life experience?

Albakruna: Actually I consider every day of my days in Second Life the craziest, silliest, funniest ever because let’s face it, even just hovering over a cloud in the sky while building is not that usual. What chained me to this world and still keep me thrilled about is the fact you virtually can do whatever as the imagination is the only limit and, we know, imagination has no limits 🙂
Continue reading

Of Corrupted Databases, Cabbages and Kings

Untitled

Regular readers of It’s Only Fashion will have missed us for the last two days. We had a corrupted database. From what I understand, it took a package from a North Korean agent in a black wool coat and dark glasses. Of course, anyone else would have known the agent was suspicious because it’s something like 90° and he’s wearing a black wool coat. Our database, however, was naive and unsuspecting. I hope it has learned its lesson.

Perhaps though, like Thomas Bailey Aldrich, it was distracted by two petals falling from a rose:

MY mind lets go a thousand things,
Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,
And yet recalls the very hour—
’T was noon by yonder village tower,
And on the last blue noon in May— 5
The wind came briskly up this way,
Crisping the brook beside the road;
Then, pausing here, set down its load
Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly
Two petals from that wild-rose tree.

Continue reading