Repository | Book | Chapter
(2011) Reinventing ourselves, Dordrecht, Springer.
Virtual fashion play as embodied identity re/assembling
second life fashion bloggers and their avatar bodies
Christine Liao
pp. 101-127
Second LifeTM fashion bloggers use the virtual environment as a place to re/construct different assemblages of self, thereby creating new potential for and experiences of subjectivity. Drawing on theories of embodiment and Deleuze and Guattari's (A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. (B. Massumi, Tran.). University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1987) theories of the Body without Organs, assemblage, and becoming, I propose virtual fashion play as a process through which people continually construct and deconstruct identity. The inquiry centres on two questions: What is the relationship between bloggers and their avatars? How do bloggers construct identities through fashion? The fashion bloggers referenced do not see themselves as constructing identities that are separate from the identities of their physical lives. However, their avatars do have an impact on their physical selves. Their physical and virtual bodies are integrated as they re/assemble identities, and virtual fashion offers a technology of self that expresses practices of identity.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-0-85729-361-9_6
Full citation:
Liao, C. (2011)., Virtual fashion play as embodied identity re/assembling: second life fashion bloggers and their avatar bodies, in A. Peachey & M. Childs (eds.), Reinventing ourselves, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 101-127.
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