Dakota Rose: A Style Genious

There is a huge buzz in the internet about "doll like" girls. Some look a little bit strange or highly Photoshopped and some actually look like real life dolls, such as Kotakoti. Miss Koti is a character created and developed by a 16 years old American girl and her real name is Dakota Rose.

She has more than 120 thousand subscribers on youtube, where she posts hair, clothing and make up tutorials with more than 28 million views. Her sweet looks have been complimented in fashion and lifestyle blogs around the world and even major general information websites such as the British Daily Mail and the German Invadermag. She has dozens of fake profiles on facebook created by fans.

Together with the success, Dakota has been collecting haters. They accuse her of being a fake and of "frauds" to acquire her doll-like sweet look, such as photoshop, wigs, extreme make up, fake age, contact lenses and it goes on.

Yes, I believe some pictures look Photoshopped and her make up create bigger eyes impression, but what is wrong with that? Does people really think all celebrities in pop business look as beautiful as they do in magazine photos or music videos?

The main point of all is that Dakota Rose seems to me a style genius! Differently from celebrities styled by the best beauty professional in business, she managed by herself with make up, hair and clothing to turn into a gorgeous real life doll (with good taste and no exaggeration!) and she represents the Lolita and anime trend better than anyone else!

The picture ahead shows Dakota Rose without her character and photoshop (in the middle). She is not so different from her Kotakoti version: the hair, the eye color, the skin look pretty much the same!

Before becoming the cutest Anime model in the world, Dakota used to be a buzz in another scene; together with her sister, they used to collect fans on myspace creating unusual looks - in my opinion - Emo style. Therefore from young age she already rocked being creative and getting attention with her make up, hair and styling abilities.

Although I can see her talent with the Emo looks, I'm happy Dakota found herself in the Japanase/Asian fashion scene!

Here are a few more pictures of her Kotakoti role:

 

Real or not, the way Dakota created and accomplished the character Kotakoti is definitely genius and she deserves the success!

If you also likes the looks and style of Kotakoti, you can follow her blog or youtube chanel:

http://www.kotakoti.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/dakotakoti

Düsseldorf State of Art Photography Exhibition

Today is the last day of the "State of Art Photography" exhibition in Düsseldorf.  I was fortunate to have the opportunity of visiting this exhibition, which in the end gave me even more excitement about believing my photography ideal. The reason for that, are actually two: the two most outstanding photographers were female and one of them is young and self-tough.

From the 20 photographers in the State of Art exhibition, definitely Alex Prager took my attention.

Born in 1979 in Los Angeles, her photography is a pure psychedelic film noir 60's adventure: women wearing wigs and dramatic make up, living in retro circumstances, which sometimes remind me of the 70's film "Stepford Wives". So creative and unique! It brings the spectator into another world.

When asked where she learned photography her answer is simple: "at the city library and with books at home".

Aside with "State of Art", there was Bettina Rheims "The Gender Studies" exhibition.

The main face of this exhibition was the supermodel Andrej Pejik.

French born Bettina started her work in the 80's and has a strong reputation for making highly provocative images exploring female sensuality, sometimes bringing the eroticism in line with what many would consider obscene.

 

  

So those two photographers cached my attention between many great ones. People that like abstract photography, art or landscape, might find my opinion wrong, because there was a full plate of other great artists for every taste.

For more information about the other photographers and about the exhibition in general, visit: http://www.nrw-forum.de/state_of_the_art_photography_english

Visiting the Sinister Vila Hugel

One of the main tourist attractions in the city where I live now - Essen in Germany - is the Vila Hugel mansion. It's a neo-classic house constructed by a very successful businessman 100 years ago, with wood floors and sealings, huge rooms, sinister old pictures on the wall and a beautiful garden. 

It's very interesting and well conserved. It looks like the perfect place to shoot a film noir and with this inspirational idea I made a few pictures of Vila Hugel and it's garden.

 

 

P.S.: In reality Vila Hugel doesn't look sinister, I just shot in a sinister perspective to make it more interesting... So if you were thinking about visiting the place someday, I hope you don't give up because of my pictures. :)

All the images are copyrighted by me and you are welcome to use them for no commercial manners. I only ask you to please inform me about it.

My First Cake + Emo-Hippie Look

For some reason I was looking for delicious recipes the last days and I felt a special need to bake this cake: it had 671 reviews and by far most 5 stars! My mouth kept watering while I looked at the picture, so I couldn't resist these 580 calories per portion.

This is the first cake I ever baked. I felt so proud of myself and emotional when I saw the result. I never knew it would be such fun and rewarding experience to bake something. ;)

I took the recipe from the BBC Good Food website. It's called "Ultimate Chocolate Cake". The result was delicious, but quite too rich for my taste! The recipe asked more than 400 grs of sugar, butter, 400 grs of chocolate: more rich, sweet and chocolately impossible! If you like these features, you should definitely try!

Another interesting thing to share today is my last clothing combination. Voilà!

This dress, top and jacket were quite old and just sitting in the wardrobe. In a creative moment I decided to put them together and they worked out pretty good don't you think?

It's sweet, but cool... a bit emo, but hippie... The color combination is also quite interesting.

Suddenly changing the subject, to finish the post with my latest personal updates, ahead you can see some inspirational pics I took the other day. I'm not sure if they are so good, so if you want to give me your honest opinion, I'm thankful! Till next time!

The Fascinating Marilyn Monroe

“We should all start to live before we get too old. Fear is stupid. So are regrets.” 

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” 

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.”

"She was a girl who knew how to be happy, even when she was sad. And that's important."

"Imperfection is beauty. Madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous, than absolutely boring."

 

 

"I'm not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful."

 "I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made."

 

"I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else."

"I used to think as I looked at the Hollywood night, 'There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the hardest.' " 

I have a strong fascination for Marilyn Monroe. In each of her pictures, in each of her quotations, I see a beautiful human being, full of dreams, with a childish hope to embrace and to become the wonderful. Someone that desperately wanted to be loved and unfortunately was by many misunderstood.

Marilyn is one of my main inspirations in life. I take from her inspiration to believe my dreams, see the world as a wonderful and beautiful place, to always look up and smile even when things go bad, to feel that being a woman is something magic and enjoyable, to know that you show you are smart when you sometimes pretend being stupid, to know that being feminine is nothing to be embarrassed about and to understand that if I wanna live in a fascinating world I help out being a fascinating person.

Cities Like Home

 

 First one is Berlin. This one is my favorite for sure! So that I am moving to there soon.
There is something about Berlin different from everywhere else in the world. Probably for such reason so many fabulous artists wrote songs about the city: Frank Sinatra, Lou Reed, Ramones, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, U2 "Zoo Station" - where I am standing near by in the picture.

Berlin is very cosmopolitan and international - a more friendly London. Somehow you feel free over there, because everyone is so used to a planet sized variety of people; you can just be yourself, dress as you like and you most likely won't attract judgmental looks.

Berlin is for me a huge delicious cake filled up with culture, fun, history, art, fashion... I just want to eat it all! Like I ate those strawberries in the picture last year, just after visiting an exhibition at the Dali museum.

 

"An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris" is a quotation by a philosopher that I normally spite: Friedrich Nietzsche. Although his appreciation towards Paris earns him a little respect from me, together with more spite for such exaggeration.

Paris is for sure a city where artists feel like home, but not the only one in Europe. Although I can see his point, because I can imagine how in the 19th century Berlin and London were not so open minded as today and Paris has been an artist garden since much longer.

Just walking around in Paris is always a magic moment. You are constantly living a romantic book: feeling inspired by the classic architecture, the fountains, the gardens, the rudely charming French people... It should be fantastic waking up everyday in such city. Just like a dream life.

Hamburg is like Paris in Germany. That means you have a bit of French charm, beautiful architecture, a bit of a romantic feeling, together with great German organization, cleanness and politeness. Twist this mix together and it fits pretty good to my taste!

Hamburg is a Port - I guess maybe together with Amsterdam, the biggest ones in Europe - there is water everywhere! It feels sentimental, like walking around in a mountain sized ship navigating in cold waters: like if you could think of a city to represent the Titanic ship, then it would be Hamburg!

Actually, at first, Hamburg's beauty and charm took over my heart before Berlin. Then It's aristocratic style didn't match so much with my husbands lifestyle, and that's why in the end we opted for Berlin. Still Hamburg stays in my mind for future plannings.

Since I started modeling I had the great opportunity to experience life in many places in the world. Definitely Shanghai is the place I liked the lifestyle best.

The city was created to be a business place, which is pleasant to live. A place for everyone and every culture. It has beautiful gardens, futuristic architecture, it's filled up with green areas, Buddhist temples and catholic churches, a river crossing the city, lots of types of clubs, bars and restaurants, museums: it's a whole world in one place!

Shanghai is hard to describe, because it's everything new. It's all that didn't happen yet. It's China rising in the horizon of progress. It feels like the place to be now and then later. It's the future!

I guess this is the best sentence: WoAi Shanghai!