Hi everyone! Thank you for frequenting the imprisonedwhimsy blog! I've decided it would be nice to feature a "set of the day", because I know that i'm going to get sick of talking about my own inspiration. The Set of the Day will simply be my favorite set of the day. I will also include a semi-detailed description of WHY I chose the set. Also, it will usually be a set that was made the day I chose it, just to keep things interesting :)

"remembering the first time..." by KathiD

This is one of those "masterpieces of color". The silver/white against the teal background is striking, pulling the best out of both colors. Those shoes are INSANE. I mean, I wouldn't wear them because I have issues with things around my ankles but...this is the first I've seen them and I'm crazy about them. I also love how there's a teal "tint" to the jean jacket that Kat seemed to pick up on. Also, the whole set is well proportioned. There's tension and conflict between the fabrics, cuts and colors, but the harmony is just lovely. (A C7 for you music theory enthusiasts...just me?)

(Inspired by Jeffrey Sibelia's winning collection for Project Runway, season 3)
I.

If the soul of the dead is not purified, it can return to the land of the living in the guise of a ghost. Also, if a dead person is not delivered, through prayer, from personal emotions such as jealousy, envy or anger, the spirit can return in a ghostly guise. The ghost haunts the place where it lived and persecutes those responsible for his or her bitter fate. The ghost will remain until released from its suffering through the good offices of a living person who prays that the soul of the dead ... may ascend. ~Norman A Rubin "Ghosts, Demons and Spirits in Japanese Lore"

II.

Most creatures in stories of unfortunate spirits were women. They were vengeful ghosts, and the greater the misery endured by the woman during her lifetime, the more threatening her ghostly spirits would be after her death. Cruelty to women is a recurring theme in Japanese lore and legend. ~Norman A. Rubin "Ghosts, Demons and Spirits in Japanese Lore"

III.

When someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage... a curse is born. The curse gathers in that place of death. Those who encounter it will be consumed by its fury. ~The Grudge

IV.

A long, long time ago, a woman named Oiwa was married to a man named Iemon and they lived in Yotsuya. One day, a rich lady fell in love with Iemon and captured his heart with her money. Iemon ordered his servant "Put a little of this medicine into Oiwa's every meal". Day by day, Oiwa grew weak, lost her hair and the right side of her face became deformed. After this she was treated cruelly by the people around her and she died holding a grudge against them. After her death many strange things ... happened and all of the people who had mistreated her died.

V.

Yuki Onna (Snow Woman; yuki means snow and onna means woman.) On nights when it is snowing, Yuki Onna appears on the road wearing a kimono and asks you to hold her baby. Her breath is as cold as ice. If you hold her baby your whole body will be frozen by her breath. She often visits mountain huts enticing men (to come outside), and takes away their souls.

VI.

Okiku works as a maid at the home of the samurai Tessan Aoyama\u0005. One day while cleaning a collection of ten precious ceramic plates--a family treasure--she accidentally breaks one of them. The outraged Aoyama kills her and throws the corpse into an old well. Every night afterwards, Okiku's ghost rises from the well, counts slowly to nine and then breaks into heartrending sobs, over and over and over again, tormenting the samurai. Finally, vengeance is wrought when Aoyama goes insane.

VII.

An interesting physical aspect of yurei (japanese ghost) is that they have no legs, trailing off instead into smoke-like wisps where a person's legs would normally be. The absence of legs fits with the general non-corporeality of the yurei, for their whole bodies are wraithlike and lacking in that outer boundary of skin or scale that holds other living things in shape. Legs serve to join creatures to the soil, they root being to the earth, and so to be legless is in a sense to be disengaged.

What to say about the 50's? I'll be honest, I don't know that much about it. My parents were only children in the 50's so they don't have much to say about it. I do know that my mom woke up nights as a child in sheer panic because she heard a plane fly overhead. It was the Cold War, kittens. It messed with people's minds.

Anyway, every monday I'm going to do a set that was inspired by the 50's. We can all learn a little bit more about this mysterious decade.

This is a series of Gothic inspired pieces. The men (and woman) in these photographs were intended to be vampires, I believe. I love to see a familiar icon (Bela Lugosi's Dracula, for instance) re-imagined.

These gentlemen are perfectly designed to appeal to both men and women. They are strong, seductive and strange...just the kinds of men to whom women are most attracted.

On the other side of the coin...(or the same side of another coin), they could be willowy, waif-ish and submissive, appealing to gay men and/or open minded straight men. Obviously this is most beneficial to a vampire, because they double their options for a satisfying dinner.

'Silver Blood'


'Back in Black'


'Goth Home and Country'


'Midnight Hour'


'Bela Lugosi's Dead'


'Inspired by the Fallen Nun'I included this set because this was the first set I did AFTER the Gothic vampires and I was still in a 'bloody' state of mind. I used the blood spot on white sheets as an analogy to a fallen nun. The outfit is meant to be a little unsettling (hence the chartreuse pumps) and reflect the confusion, sadness, terrifying freedom and bloom of lust upon casting off old restraints.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. ~Mark Twain

And just for noting's sake, that's a cross dresser from the 1940's or 1950's in the picture named Harvey Lee. Isn't he a stunner?

This set was designed for a drag queen, entirely. The male body would look chic, fabulous and feminine in this ensamble, without the use of painful garters and corsets. If a guy is all about that, fine, but if you want comfort AND femininity, this is the way to go. The blue camisole was selected because of it's straight cut, that is...no waist...and it's length, which is short. This will accentuate the male torso nicely without looking masculine. To hide those big shoulders, one must wear a cute little jacket that fits perfectly at the shoulders without accentuating them. The puff sleeves don't puff until below the shoulder, creating a nice feminine curve. The lovely gloves are to hide those inevitable 'man hands'. And the rest is pretty self explanatory. I love this silouette for a tranny. Statuesque, elegant, and slimming, like an early joan crawford.

Why does society cater to youth? I'm fascinated by this. As I understand it, human beings have a reputation as being the most sophisticated animals on Earth. We can reason, determine right from wrong and, should we so choose, fight baser instincts.

In spite of this, children are the lords of the race. We listen to bad pop music because the kids like it. We watch watered down, intellectually devoid television because the kids can't pay attention to anything better. We walk through the mall and are assaulted by Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers around every corner with their pearly whites and twinkling eyes because they're child gods.

Aging women get facelifts, butt lifts, shoulder implants, breast implants, tummy tucks in the hopeless attempt to recapture their "youth". Not necessarily because they want to, but because they HAVE to...to keep their jobs or their husbands. Aging, a natural and unavoidable human condition, is considered shameful, "ugly", "unhealthy".

Even my beloved Polyvore has been taken over by these teens and tweens. My 60 year old mother, a polyvorian by the name of Mewsmom, was told by some snot-nosed brat that "she didn't like people who are 60 and have a polyvore". Obviously, 60 year olds are unwelcome in a place of fun and beauty. They belong in a home because they're SIXTY!! OMG, just, lyke, die alredy, beiyatch.

And that's not the most baffling part. Adults make up the majority of the population. Why do we all roll over for these kids? Why don't we insist on quality anymore? Maybe the children of our world wouldn't grow up to be such shits if they had access to some class when they were young. "Barney" has generated some seriously inhuman monsters, that's all I can say.

ANYway...i made this set to magnify the beauty of an older woman who is completely natural and completely, lets face it, OLD...but still dignified and graceful and far more beautiful than Mischa Barton or Paris Hilton or any of those filthy fashionistas.

This is one of my darker sets and I hesitated to even save it because it is so dark...at least to my eye. See, when people think of death it is generally void of light. All of life's depravity sits comfortably in the dark. That's where we want it, and thats where we can visit it when our lust for sin takes over.

But this set is washed in light. The dress is a shimmery gold, the shoes, jewelry and jacket a light silvery grey. The haunting photograph (thank you, fabulon) is LIGHT...pure death...but light. So if you find this image to be unsettling, I think that's why. We're just not used to seeing death in the light of day. It's horrors are too easy and painful to see. Perhaps if we shined a light onto all that lives in the dark, we would not be so quick to revisit from time to time.

Then again...

(excerpt from "Music of the Night")
Night-time sharpens,
heightens each sensation ...
Darkness stirs and wakes imagination ...
Silently the senses abandon thier defences ...

Slowly, gently night unfurls its splendour ...
Grasp it, sense it - tremulous and tender ...
Turn your face away from the garish light of day,
turn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light -
and listen to the music of the night ...

--Andrew Lloyd Webber "The Phantom of the Opera"

Catwoman is a fictional character associated with DC Comics' Batman franchise and created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane.
The original and most widely known Catwoman, Selina Kyle, first appeared in Batman #1 (Spring 1940) in which she was known as The Cat. As an adversary of Batman, she was a whip-carrying burglar with a taste for high stake thefts. Modern writers have attributed her activities and costumed identity as a response to a history of abuse.
Since the 1990s, Catwoman has been featured in an eponymous series that cast her as an anti-hero rather than a supervillainess. The character has been one of Batman's most enduring love interests, and has occasionally been depicted as his one true love.
(courtesy of Wikipedia)

“If there are twelve clowns in a ring, you can jump in the middle and start reciting Shakespeare, but to the audience, you'll just be the thirteenth clown."
Adam Walinsky


“When the heroes go off the stage, the clowns come on”
Heinrich Heine


“This dance was the dance of death. [The clowns] danced it for the wretched of the earth, that they might witness their own wretchedness.”
Angela Carter

“We are in the same tent as the clowns and the freaks-that's show business.”
Edward R. Murrow