The Spotlight Column tends to introduce interesting, remarkable and famous or not Second Life residents. The questionnaire is almost the same and of course, what makes each interview unique is the subject’s answers.
This month, Eleseren Brianna, owner and designer of Romance Couture is under the Spotlight. She is also a skilled model and a creative stylist. I confess I am very happy to have Eles‘interview opening this new monthly column as her brand was Glitz & Glamour’s first sponsor!
Romance Couture brought glamour, elegance and style to Second Life Fashion. It participates in several prestigious fashion events some of them being charity proceedings which show Eles’ loving and caring personality.
Glitz & Glamour: What brought you to Second Life?
Eleseren Brianna: I first came to SL in February 2009, after hearing about it from a friend. Initially I was intrigued by the role-playing side of SL (the fantasy Elven side not the Gor side!). Pretty soon though I got the urge to begin to create and to make clothes, and I taught myself gradually. Two years ago I left SL and spent just over a year in InWorldz, but came back in April last year and I am loving it.
G&G: What do you enjoy most about Second Life?
EB: I like the fact that there are almost endless possibilities. You can be anyone, or pretty much anything you want to be, and you can be creative and expressive in ways that might be hard (or prohibitively expensive), or even just plain impossible in RL. There is a great international social life too – I have friends all around the world in here.
G&G: You are a model and a designer. What interests you most about modelling in Second Life?
EB: I first started training as a model because I simply wanted to make better vendor boards for my own designs. However I fell in love with two things, styling, and the wonderful, almost Kabuki-like, performance aspect of SL modelling. Styling is incredibly creative, and it’s a fabulous challenge too. I love to style, and I am trying to improve (good styling is not easy as I have discovered!) and it also ‘stirs my pot’ creatively too, and helps inspire new designs for Romance Couture. As regards the ‘performance’ aspect of SL modelling, I find the expressiveness of matching poses and walks to clothes and to the mood one is trying to create, reminiscent of a beautiful, careful, exquisite dance performance.
G&G: And what or who inspires you when you are creating a new design for Romance Couture?
EB: Inspiration comes from everywhere, as I used to find when I worked RL as a designer dressmaker. A texture/fabric can be the inspiration, a colour, a sculpt I have found, or a flexi skirt I have made, seeing a designer’s work, or a piece of art or design, or simply having an image come to mind. Some designs simply flow straight away, and others I work on and struggle with until they come together, and some designs start off with one idea and end up looking completely different, because I always listen to the design as it tries to form itself, and I am open to things changing.
G&G: Which dress or gown in your collection are you most proud of?
EB: I would have to say that the two Formal gowns I made for the Miss Virtual World 2014 Final are the ones I am proudest of. I pushed myself to my technical limits in both of these gowns, both in build and in texturing, because I wanted to create truly amazing and beautiful gowns for the beautiful Misses who wore them (Spirit Llewellyn and SD Damiano).
G&G: If you had to begin again, would you still become a model and a clothing designer?
EB: OMG yes, I would just want 30 hour days!
G&G: What was your proudest moment in SL so far?
EB: I am not sure I necessarily think in terms of ‘proud’, I can certainly give my most exciting and happy times. Seeing Miss V Belize and Miss V Brazil come out in my gowns was omg wonderful, but also discovering I was going to show in the same BOSL Fashion Week show as Azul and Tres Beau and LIV-Glam was pretty mind-blowing too
G&G: If you were granted 3 wishes… what would those be?
EB: Definitely more time, the ability and chances to become a more successful model – I would love to compete in Miss Virtual World eventually, simply because I crave those amazing style challenges, and I would wish that my design muse never took a day off, but continues to take me on amazing creative journeys which hopefully end in designs people love and enjoy wearing.
Photographs Courtesy of Eleseren Brianna
Anouk Lefavre 