07.04.07

My Avatar

Posted in Photos, Textile(s), fashion at 2:34 pm by delipics

One of things I’ve been fooling around with since I can’t knit.

I find it to be a bit amazing that Yahoo is culturally sensitive and has Filipino clothing and backgrounds for selection. I wonder how it was decided to design these Filipino avatar elements. Did they get emails requesting it? Is there an influential Asian executive who insisted on it? Was it the marketing department who looked at demographics and saw a mass of people who like to shop? And why lavender for this dress? This dress should have embroidery or beading - I’ve never seen a Filipino formal dress this simple.

This background is the Philippine Vigan town. (Type “vigan town” on Google to see many links about it.) I also could have chosen from rice terraces, Philippine bay walk, Jeepney background or Philippine nipa huts. I was feeling literal at the time and just couldn’t see my avatar in this gorgeous outfit strolling along the rice terraces or in traffic with jeepneys speeding by. So here she is, all dressed up with a flirty flower in her hair - maybe she’s going to a festival.

Yahoo called this the “tagalog dress”. I have never heard this dress called a tagalog dress. When I was a little girl, I always knew it as the butterfly dress because of the sleeves. A quick search on Google again and I learned this dress is called a terno. I also found a possible inspiration for the style of the dress here.

This is my one dress from the Philippines, but I’m not sure if this is called a terno. It’s not as formal but it is dressy.

I remember my mother used to have beautiful ternos when I was still a little girl. I always wondered what happened to those dresses.

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