Boring Interviews with Apes: Sera Stargirl and the Bored Ape Salon

It’s been a whirlwind NFT romance with Bored Ape Yacht Club! My boring life somehow got even more boring one late night in May 2021 — the same night that Bored Ape Yacht Club minting sold out.

Some days I wonder if I am the only one who didn’t quite understand the magnitude of what I was buying into; a family of 10K Bored Apes where loyalty, automatic friendship, and membership reign.

A life of incredible opportunity on multiple levels, including a swamp in the metaverse, a bathroom to graffiti, a free Bored Ape Kennel Club companion, and the anticipation of The Mutant Ape (NFT Breeding) Arcade Machine being fixed. To boot, other NFTs treated us like royalty with free airdrops and exclusive access.

But perhaps the most boring is the insanely creative and countless innovative ways BAYC owners have decided to utilize their BAYC IP license.

The most popular use of the BAYC IP license seems to be retail — from ape derivatives to coffee to t-shirts to sneakers to gold chains — the creativity is endless. And now we get to add “services” to this list!

Meet @SeraStargirl, creator and owner of @BoredApeSalon — the first premiere glow-up service for Bored Ape Yacht Club.

The Bored Ape Salon is the first NFT salon service offered to apes.

“I knew I wanted to offer a cute NFT salon service, and I got the idea for creating a payment token from my experiences in Japan where you’d pay for a service at a vending machine then get a token or ticket to redeem it inside,” said Sera.

The token is intricate and a beautiful blush pink that rotates and feels like exclusive fashion luxury.

“It serves as a way for me to verify that the token is held by the same wallet as the ape looking for a salon session. I created 12 of them as a nod to my ape’s number #1287, and once they are sold out and redeemed, they become commemorative collectable tokens.”

Her salon offers a menu of services and customizations that personalize your collectible.

She developed her salon idea after her husband, @theboywanders, shared ape derivative artwork with her.

“It got me thinking about how I could personalize my ape to make it fit more of my personal vibe. I grabbed my iPad + iPencil and added hair and some elf ears to my ape. My husband was actually the one who believed in my art skills enough to say that I should offer it as a service for others who might also want this done for their apes.”

Sera aped in while she was on a road trip hotel hopping and then developed her Bored Ape Salon in-between rest stops. Her checklist included securing all the social media and art that she’d need. As it was, Sera was already drawn to BAYC from a fashion perspective.

From her IRL fashion designer’s eye, she described her respect for BAYC as the “hype-beast style of fashion” and observed that it fell into the genre just by the look of the first merch drop.

“It’s the first NFT project I have closely followed and bought into. I am curious how this ‘members-only community’ will grow and develop. It’s well-thought-out, and I’m happy to have a spot in this community. It’s been fascinating! I think that’s really what sets this project apart from all of the ‘copycat’ projects; they just don’t have that same style factor as the bored apes.”

Sera’s creative physical and mental space usually includes sitting on her bed and listening to random YouTube videos to keep her mind occupied while her imagination and hands wander and create drawings on her iPad.

After noticing that she had a Decentraland user name on her Twitter profile, I asked whether her IRL career as a fashion designer would make a sweeping entrance in the metaverse?

“Absolutely! @theboywanders has been playing around with Decentraland wearables and has his first drop coming out soon, and as we learn more as a team about the process and limitations, I will begin to design my wearables. I have tons of ideas that I just need to make sure I know how to execute. So expect to see magical feminine designs from me.”

So what advice does this fashion mogul have for future NFT artists?

“Experiment! Mess around with different styles and mediums and find what suits your personal art style. Keep practicing at your craft until you feel comfortable releasing a project. Just go for it!”

Agreed! JUST GO FOR IT.

Swickie is an NBA Top Shot and NFT collector. You can find her at https://twitter.com/topshotswickie.

* Photos provided by @serastargirl and @theboywanders