The Unofficial Second Life® Fashion and Shopping Blog

Christmas is coming up fast, almost too fast, snow is falling at my home in SL and it looks like an elf puked up the North Pole. With all these Christmas silks and camisks being released, I’m feeling more frantic than festive. But, here’s a quick round-up of the pretty holiday releases that have crossed my merry path thus far.

Solange Cerveau of Solange! is giving away Christmas silks in red, green and white, and they even come with an adorable Santa hat! She is also giving away freebies in her 12 Days of Christmas gift hunt. As of this writing, she has released gifts 1 through 6, Gifts 1 through 4 have disappeared so hurry over.

Amethyst Deledda of Solstice has released some yummy silks with prim peppermint candy accents. She offers them in Red, Purple, Green, Silver, Blue, and Gold and if the holiday spirits are with you, you can win them in her lucky chair. She also has several freebies set out, including a set of snowman slippers and reindeer antlers.

Analise has graced us with two holiday silks in her lucky chair: the “Yasirah Silks” in Yule and the “Shimmerina Silks” in Snow are particularly luscious. (It’s not Christmas-related but for all you Free Women, she has a new gown also, the photo looks exquisite, if only I had a place to wear one).

See more holiday silks after the cut…
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When Salome first invited me to write occasional Silk reviews for Linden Lifestyles, my first thought was — how cool would that be! — I jumped at the opportunity. Then reality set in, and I realized how much work photographing and write-ups must be, but I was still stoked. As more reality set in, I wondered about how the stigma element some feel toward Gor would affect regular, more mainstream readers of LL and it made me a little hesitant. Salome suggested I lay these feelings on the table in my first review. So, let’s get it out of the way.

I’ve been invited here to blog for the (often underrepresented) Gor fashion market. It isn’t a social statement or a shift in focus for the blog. It’s merely an element of the marketplace that no one else at LL had any interest in. If you don’t like Gor or any of its trappings, please don’t bother to read my entries because I’m not here to debate you about my choice of virtual lifestyle. I’m excited to be doing this and look forward to all the shopping involved (which, frankly, I do anyway). Any comments on my entires, however, should address the actual items under review and it is my hope that most will stick to that. For my part I will also stick to my enjoyment and opinion of the style and quality of items and provide as little social narrative as possible. I offer my thanks in advance to readers who respect my right to do and dress as I like even if it isn’t their cup of tea and I welcome any Gor-leaning friends who might have felt left out from the readership of this blog previously.

Now back to our regularly scheduled review.

I was out and about on a shopping spree, hunting furniture (a girl needs new cushions now and then) when I landed in a place called The Lair Gorean Market. Any thoughts of furniture were instantly forgotten because the silks grabbed my attention and held on.

I totally fell in love with a set called “Wanton Wear Scripted Belled Silks.” These amazing silks come in 15 different colors adorned by Silver or Gold bells. I purchased the silver and burgundy set which, even at the L$1000 price tag were well worth it.

The set includes a prim top that can be attached at the chest or spine points. There are 3 different length flexi skirts and a panty layer. Both the skirt and the top are Sensations-Scripted allowing others to interact with them by tugging, removing, etc. Also included in the set are anklets, cuffs, earrings, belly piercing, circlet and belled collar.

The prim work and detail on them is stunning and if you spend a lot of time zoomed in on yourself (or with others who zoom in on you) the quality really stands out.

My only complaint is the same problem I have with all prim silks, I’m petite for SL, only just 5′3″ and I have to do quite a bit of adjusting to get the silks to fit me. Kalli Heart will do a one time mod for you if you drop her a notecard and she has time.

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We very rarely cover silks and veils because it’s really not our thing, but given that we have our very own masquerade ball coming up, I thought I’d share some of the fashions from Ylusive Surface at Beyond the Veil.

I don’t role play and I don’t get veils, so all I know is that these would make damn fine masks for a masquerade:

There are six different styles of veils. With each style, you get it in gold and silver metal, and then choose from six different fabric colours for the actual veil bit. There is also a clever tintable version, so you can go pastel or create different coloured panels to match your attire.

The metal work is quite elaborate and very well crafted - some of these are full head pieces. The veils themselves are made from beautifully selected silks, laces and feathers, and flutter with a nice flexi touch.

Ylusive clearly knows her way around a prim; you can see it in her products, and you can also see it in her store, which is a small but perfectly formed Arabian-inspired build with the best damn drapery prims I’ve ever seen. Too bad those are not for sale too!

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Not too long ago I was accused of claiming that silks were “the height of fashion” or some such muckity-muck. That person being off their meds aside, the truth is, I don’t review silks often because a) they’re not a staple of my SL lifestyle, b) they mostly all look alike to me, and c) I don’t particularly find them attractive. So when a silk catches my eye, it is generally doing something pretty damn impressive.

Meet the Aphrodite Silk (shown here in color “passion purple”) by Alegria Designs.

Regardless of whether or not this little number meets my personal sense of style, the prim work on it impressed the holy hell outta me. Nearly everything on the outfit from veil to heels is painfully detailed prim work. Don’t believe me? Let me show you the “clothing” layers of the outfit which are barely a whisper of unfinished-looking thong and bikini top:

That’s it. That’s all the base clothing work the outfit has to offer. EVERYTHING ELSE IS PRIM. Seriously.

Forgetting, for just a second, that I’m knocked out several times over by the prim work of this costume, I should say that I think having these skimpy base items is a mistake. At bare minimum if you’re going to bother to have clothing layers they should, in and of themselves, be something. This isn’t even really enough to be a bathing suit. A Canadian stripper would catch cold in this.

Still, let’s face it, if you’re at all interested in this set, you’re after the prim work. The armbands, pelvis, and bust prim filagree scrolling is art - plain and simple. The felxi prim cloth panels sway in delicate harmony (and miraculously seem to align — all the photos I took are out-of-box — I didn’t adjust a thing).

While ordinarily I wouldn’t be seen wearing a pair of shoes which featured a pencil point heel, I have to say the shoes that come with the set are also prim impressive and I love the semi-transparent fabric textures on the back of the heel and the toe slide.

I can’t say I would have bought this costume for myself (it was provided to me as a blog sample) but I will say that just on the merit of the skill that went into primming it, it more than caught my eye. Taken for a whole and not just an evaluation of its individual parts, If silks are your thing, this puppy should really melt your butter.

Oh and don’t worry if the purple isn’t your cuppa - it comes in about 10 different colors.

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