sly little fox.

            “Look how long my hair is getting.”

            Sylvia grasped the tips of her hair in small fists and extended her arms on either side of her head, pushing out her bottom lip. Her hair falls to her waist, but the layer doesn’t look heavy, as it can appear on others. She is small, and seems delicate in the way that her toes point inwards when she stands, all her weight on one hip.

            “Sly was just a name for the computer system [at Rebel Rebel],” she said, rolling her eyes. “They asked me what I wanted, and Sly is close to Sylvia, I guess.”

            But Sylvia is sly. She’s been creating fur jewelry for six years, though before and in between that time she completed a BA in English at the University of Victoria. Widely and eccentrically read, Sylvia can spit cultural criticism more effectively and convincingly than she can sell you a pair of jeans (but don't be fooled- she sells denim with aplomb). Jewelry isn’t paying all the bills, so Sylvia developed a taste for cigars and taught others to appreciate night-smoking at the old cigar shop. She led tours at the museum, and of course, took it upon herself to teach those who frequent Rebel Rebel and B&G a thing or two about personal style: cream-colored oxford shoes, long in the toe, and octagonal glasses from the sixties. Patent leather over-the-knee boots with a pair of lambskin leggings.

            The constant in her answers is a sense of incredulity, as though she is unsure why someone would ask her about something like her earrings, which she originally intended to be only for herself.

“I made something for me and I suppose it just sort of caught on,” she said.

 Sylvia tilted her head to the side, nose wrinkled. So many of her movements are reminiscent of a small animal–a rabbit or a fox. Quick and sweet and more precarious than they could ever look. The piece she is referring to was a pair of earrings: rectangles of coarse deer hair with strips of petal-soft black rabbit fur lain on top.

“Fur is so tactile. I liked the idea of wearing something you could play with. I’m not the first to do that, either. Taxidermy and skulls. Georgia O’Keefe.” She nods decisively and wraps her hair around her fingers, dragging her hands down the length. She doesn’t wear much jewelry anymore. A few large rings and a thin-banded watch. Later, I pet a small rabbit-fur barrette of her design. Clipped up in a bun, it will barely peek from twists of hair. Sylvia uses mostly deer and black or white rabbit fur, sometimes adding pyrite stones or charms. The best part about her jewelry is it’s unassuming nature. The seeming shyness that makes it worth seeking.

“It’s interesting to be able to elevate the skin of a creature to something other than a rug,” she glances up briefly. “It’s sort of like, letting that feature of the animal live out past its fullest potential.”

Caught up in loose hair or the folds of a dress, the earrings and necklaces and brooches slip in and out of view. Their camouflage shifts with a tilt of the wearer’s head, with the way they angle their shoulders.  The jewelry is playful as peek-a-boo, as sly as Sylvia herself.