Like many of us starting out our Second Life®, Loon found work at a jazz club and due to the venue, her new job required her to wear dresses. Loon explains, “I needed some dresses for work but I was so poor.” While many of us would have headed straight for the freebie stores or camped out for some extra Lindens, Loon instead decided to become a bit more ambitious when it came to working her way around her predicament. “I started to study some tutorials and then I started to build and to design something,” shares Loon. Her talent became more and more apparent when people started asking her where she bought her outfits and how much she paid for them. That was when she decided to sell her creations, starting with just a few at first. When she finally had sixteen outfits to sell, Ziamela Loon opened a brand new shop. Talk about humble beginnings! Today when you visit Jador Fashion at Jador Casa you can truly appreciate just how much it has grown from that original, tiny parcel to an entire sim with massive, majestic buildings spread all around it. So much has happened to Ziamela Loon since 2007 when she sold her first flexi gown named “Chanel” under the brand name Vanity Affaire. After a short while, Loon met two other great designers, Anthony77777 Bandit, a jewelry designer, and Serser Jacobus, a
builder. “We collectively decided to rename ourselves Jador, as it was the best name between us. So Jador was the fusion from Vanity Affaire, GEM Fashion and Jador Buildings,” Loon explains. She chuckles as she reminds herself of just what has transformed in SL® since 2007 when she first opened her store. First, the clothing alone has come so far just in the past four years, especially if you look at pictures of designs from that time. Second, the three designers who had formed Jador, mutually decided to separate two years ago leaving Loon’s clothing line to be known simply as Jador Fashion and, third, Loon stopped counting her designs after those first 16 since there are now just too many to count. Jador Fashion is reminiscent of old department stores of years gone by. It’s a store where you can find almost anything your heart desires, from beachwear to fantasy fashion and everything in-between. Room after room at Jador Fashion offers up casual jean outfits, shorts and tops, classy chic pantsuits, cocktail dresses and the most formal of gowns that you can find anywhere in SL. When asked what her inspiration is for creating so many various designs, Loon confides: “I design what I feel at any given time. I never know what I’m going to create and I basically follow my mood.”
No one can argue with that type of success, yet it should be noted that versatility also plays a part. With so much competition in the fashion industry in SL, Loons feels it’s especially important for a designer to be versatile because there are so many different types of customers. While some women prefer chic clothing, and others prefer to wear formal, it’s the versatile designer who knows that all women will have a need for both types of styles in their inventory at some point. While she realizes it is impossible to make everyone happy 100% of the time, she continually tries her best to accommodate the needs of her customers as much as she can. Many of us truly can’t comprehend the work that goes into designing clothing lines, or even what it takes to also be successful at it. If you haven’t done so previously, take a walk through the Jador Fashion store and really look at all the designs being offered for sale. While Ziamela Loon has had the past four years to design all that you’ll see, her job still isn’t over, nor is it easy. To continue as a successful SL designer means keeping up with the trends, both in real life and in-world. When asked what exactly goes into creating a new line of designs for Jador