INTERVIEWS




1. Your clothing is very intriguing. Where you do you draw your inspiration from when it comes to designing?
Well, I draw my inspiration in my imagination, but surely my designs are influenced also from my cultural training. I studied classical and oriental cultures in school and in university.

2. What brought you to SL?
My cultural interest for the virtual communities and the social networks.

3. What does Thea Tamura Fashion (TTF) mean to you?
It means fashion that is not fashion, because it's just the objectification of the Thea's dreams. I don't pretend to create fashion trends in Second Life or commercially attractive products. I'm already happy if I can transform my imagination into something I can also share with other people.

4. Is there anything you would like to be doing with TTF that you aren't doing already?
My personal approach is: "Feel always not satisfied". When you are pleased and gratified of the things you do, you stop to grow. I consider all my creations works in progress. There is not only one work I consider completely concluded or that satisfies completely my soul. So my aim for the future is to be better and better and to make better works.

5. Where do you see TTF and yourself a year from now?
I don't know. I live everyday in Second Life like the last day. Ok...This is our second life but technically it is still only a play.

6. Your store certainly has a lot of personality, and really reflects what you studied in school. What particularly about other cultures draws you to be so passionate about them?
It's difficult to explain, but when you study different cultures from yours, and in particular the art and the philosophy of other people, you become really a citizen of the world and part of a "WHOLE". Your soul is animated from thousands of visions, colors, shades. It's a metaphor, of course. But you know in your heart that it doesn't exists one only point of view, one only way to see and consider things, one only idea of beauty or ugliness, for example. Your mind becomes a potpourri, a Tower of Babel. But it's not confusion, chaos. It's, instead, consciousness of the "WHOLE" and, in the same time, of all the differences, of every little particular of this "WHOLE". Every little detail, also imperfect, becomes necessary to form the "WHOLE". Often it's the detail, the simplicity of the detail, to express the true essence of the "WHOLE". I love this consciousness that my studies gave me and I try to materialize it, here in SL, in the indefinable style of TTF. In fact, what I create reflects, without doubt, this Potpourri and, in the same time, this love for the details that I consider necessary for expressing really yourself. It's like when you see a woman and you consider her beautiful only because she has a buxom body or a dress full of special effects. But if you don't look at her eyes, if you don't appreciate also her little imperceptible well hidden particulars or defects, you are appreciating only her shadow, a well made shadow of course, but not that person in her oneness and true essence. With my dresses I would like to represent what a dress usually doesn't represent. For many people, unfortunately, the fashion is useful only to dress the body, to hide the "Whole" and all its details. For me the fashion is absolutely necessary to unveil the body, also in its "intriguing" imperfection, and what is in this body. In brief, all the details of our true essence.

7. Throughout your life, have you always expressed yourself through art? Can you give us some examples?
Well. I'm a true artist to cook spaghetti. I was an artist also to change nappies for my daughter and to prepare for her tasty baby foods. I feel like an artist also when I have to clean my chaotic house or when I quarrel with my husband. I'm an artist to use the right words to husk him. :) I feel artist when I manage watercolors creating senseless spots on a sheet of paper. Or when I recover my old broken jewelry and create, with those pieces, a new bracelet or necklace. I feel I make art also when I talk with my butcher or when I cross the look of one of the street urchins who populate some alleys of my city. I breathe the life and people with art. Seriously! I have a strange idea of art. I don't want to appear presumptuous using the word "art". I'm absolutely conscious that there is a caste of artists and people who distinguish between "ART" and "art" (also between "Fashion" and "fashion"). Who defend the "true art" from the "false ART" (or the "fashion" from the "HAUTE COUTURE"). The only thing I can say to you is I use the word "ART" mainly like a "provocation" and not because I consider myself an artist (in the classical meaning of this term). I love to hack the convictions of people, and the convictions of the ones who consider untouchable the word "ART", and of the ones who consider this word almost an offense because the ART became a propriety of a caste, of an elite and so they say "Oh... I'm not an artist!..I'm free from this caste, from this elite", and in so doing they create another caste, another elite.. :-) In one of my ads, I show a woman (myself) with one of my Crests and a PUNK Dress named DEVIANT and the writing "Wearable and Structural Art". Do you think I was really serious when I created this ad in this way? :) I could also represent a house worker who cooks her spaghetti and write "Appetizing and Digestible Art" and propose this ad in the environments of Haute Couture!

8. You've been described by friends as a caring, trustworthy, and kind person. Do you feel that being so genuine can lead to people trying to take advantage of that?
Oh..if you mean " to take advantage" in a negative sense, my answer is "No", I don't think! :-) I grew up in a city that looks like a jungle and you learn very soon to not be ingenuous there. Yes, I'm very kind, but not stupid. Then, between the other things, I studied for years Aikido. Do you know Aikido? :-) Aikido is the "Art of the Harmony of KI ("vital breath"). If there is harmony in yourself, you will be in harmony also with other people. I'm still working on that. But Aikido is not only a spiritual practice like yoga for example. It's also a true martial art, the art of the ancient samurai. And when you practice martial arts, you learn to watch your back and to consider the space, where you move, at 360°.

9. If you could name a single figure in your life that inspires you and helps you to grow, who would it be and why?
In my potpourri there is not a single person...but a lot of people. So I can't answer this question. But one thing is sure: REAL myself inspires VIRTUAL myself.

10. How did you hear about SL?
I worked for a long time on the web writing about the web and some communities that animate it. So I was and I'm still now always informed about the new virtual words and communities.

11. Is there anything about you people would be surprised to know? Like a hidden talent?
Well..if they meet me in RL and see the things I made and make and know my daily life, they could be really surprised! But the mystery is the key for discovering other people. So better it doesn't reveal itself.


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