The Unofficial Second Life® Fashion and Shopping Blog

When I heard about the Ivalde show, I KNEW I just had to attend, come hell or high water, come rain or snow, no matter what the grid could bring. I love Ivalde, it’s tonnes of retro-pretty, and I do so loooooove my retro-pretty. So I arrived there a bit before the show, which itself was run by the Aspire agency. That was a good thing, because something happened that I did not expect (though I should have considering how much positive press Ivalde gets); the sim filled up.

Now when sims fill to full with prim-dripping, script-happy fashionistas, things tend to happen: lag, slow loading, and crashes. Not always in that order. It really can’t be helped, but I worry about getting pictures. Not to fear! The capable Aspire folks had pre-planned and had their own photographer there to supply photos to the press. What a concept! So I could focus on watching the show, soaking up the experience (and enthusiasm of a few first-show attendees), and doing what I do best… drool over things I NEED. Turns out the things that spoke to me, were different than those that Daisyblue covered in her Time Travel post.

The first thing grabbed my eye was the Aritha green 50’s style cocktail dress.

It is long, asymmetrical, striped, has a darling bow and it is GREEN. It’s elegant, but quirky and not the usual “little black dress” in a period known for conformity. The lady who wears this is not going to be invisible like some 50’s housewife amid the day to day drudgery of traditional duties.

Confession: I was born in 1967 so that makes me a child of the 80’s. Oh okay, it makes me a teenager of the 80’s. But I do look upon the fashions of the decade with some fondness and nostalgia.

So the 80’s pop diva-inspired number called Melinda really made me smile. It’s a classic 80’s poufy short netted minidress with spaghetti straps and silver star details. Accessories included Second Mirage’s “Tory” loopy necklace and Valena’s Elegance hat in black by Elegance Hats.

Of course, as any 80’s pop diva would know, if you don’t want to look like the “ruling clique” from “Shermer, Illinois”; with their mall hair perms hairsprayed up the wazoo, you wear it with leggings.

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When Salome asked me to cover the Nuclear Boutique fashion show for LL, I right off hoped my schedule would permit it. Nuclear Boutique is one of those stores that I have visited to purchase from and yet somehow never got around to doing a thorough revisit. Also NB is one of those stores that doesn’t seem to get much press, so I was eager to see how they handled a press event.

The show took place on a Saturday, which is always a good SL day for me, and I arrived early as per the “get there early so stuff will rezz” protocol. Once at the store, I decided to visit the show location before poking around. This ended up a lucky choice because they were having a pre-show rehearsal allowing me to snap some fully-rezzed pictures, and chat with NB owner/designer Arikinui Adria.

I also met up with Avenue Agency owner, Rusch Raymaker, and their PR person, Annette Wilder. Everyone at the show was quite helpful to the press that showed up and I was delighted by the friendly, professional atmosphere.

The first outfit I saw was this black and white corset dress named Subtle, worn here by model Juliane Beaumont It made me wish for Salome’s “tackle av and steal outfit” button, but absent that, I merely settled for screaming, “I NEED that!” I used my inner voice. Honest. There is a certain sex appeal that dresses like Subtle posses that remains classy; I think of them as smouldering conference room ensembles.

Next to catch my eye were these Destiny pantsuits, which have a sort of high-society-meets-biker-girl appeal. Stylish and designed with an eye on quality, but somehow a little gritty and naughty around the edges. The blue used on these strongly reminded me of the “Union Blue” shade you see depicted from US Civil War films, but this might be simply because the suits were so obviously inspired by military uniforms. Which reminds me — anyone know where I can get me a Harley in SL?

Read more about the Nuclear Boutique Grand Re-Opening after the cut…
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It all started so innocently, paraphrasing: “Hey Crono, Sabrina used to go to fashion shows, but isn’t around just now and I don’t like them. How about you go visit some and write em up?”

“Sure thing, Oh great Patootie haired boss.”

Now usually. I don’t do fashion shows, I’m often not in SL when they’re happening, or else they’re showing clothing that’s not my usual thing, or else I’m busy dancing on a cow or something. But I was in SL and free for the MODA October show.

Here’s a bit from the MODA press release on the show:

Annie’s Costumes - This RL costume designer has brought all of their creative experience to give you the full Hallowe’en treatment. From sexy to scary, Annie’s has the full line to make your avatar the hit of the party. Every day is Hallowe’en at Annie’s. http://extremehalloween.blogspot.com

Pretty Magic – Just in time for Hallowe’en, Mona Howitt brings you the finest in Hogwarts fashion. She is a Second Life fashion designer and Hogwarts student. Her products extend from medieval clothes, gowns, cloaks over accessories like hats and glasses (”Pretty MAGIC”) to modern pyjamas and sleepwear (”Finally”) and are sold at Winterfell, Wizard’s Alley and Pando. http://prettymagic.blogspot.com/

Crucial Creations - Crucial Armitage has designed detailed jeans, leather pants, metal and mesh outfits, chaps and boots for everyone. Men will love standing out in Crucial’s Casual Male line that includes finely textured shirts and striking outfits. Women will feel confident and alluring in Crucial’s sexy leather and lace outfits, various skirts, bikinis, and blouses for all occasions. Crucial also has a wide variety of shoes and boots in all styles and colors. http://www.crucialcreationsinsl.com/fashion/

Pizazz! – Lynuor Richelieu has just burst on the Second Life scene. After spending years as a real life costume designer, she has unleashed her new fashion line for men and women at LeftBank Studios (116,95,40). Filled with youthful elegance, these clothes are sure to please.

Check the MODA blog for up to date information and pictures from our last show (http://www.MODAFashionSL.blogspot.com ).

I knew how getting into shows themselves could be a problem so I arrived early and wearing the traditional Linden Lifestyles fashion show attending gear: a nun’s outfit. Say hello to “Sister Crono”.

So I sat and waited, and noted one thing I absolutely dislike about certain locations: no-script.

For my sake, having scripting on is a good thing, since I use my Slurlblogger from Ordinal Malaprop of Caledon to take notes from within SL without having to have a notepad window up and getting in my way, and/or using up valuable RAM/CPU cycles that could be used by SL. Having scripting enabled is also handy for communication with non-english speakers with my Babbler. I did chat with a couple of the Models, who were quite pleasant, and did a fine job themselves. I should have headed backstage to chat and hang with them.

Here’s what the MODA venue looks like:

Looks nice doesn’t it? Yes it does, but it doesn’t work so well for taking fashion shots. See those faux spotlights, they got in the way. The spotlights were essentially a good aesthetic touch but didn’t work on a practical level. Personally I think the catwalk could also be a little more compact, but otherwise the venue loaded well and I could see it just fine.

The models were a different story. Each model had to change several times and they seemed to rush them out on the catwalk which did not give their clothes enough time to properly rez for me. Throughout the show I was lucky if the outfit totally rezzed by the time the model left the catwalk. And I still kept seeing the first outfit the model wore on some of them. The script seemed to be out of sync a few times too. I would like to have had a copy, because it wasn’t repeated in the text chat! A big no no for the press, because if it’s in the chat I can go back to the log and find all the info I need. There might have been a handout of some kind, but I either didn’t see it, or didn’t get one somehow.

Here’s some shots from the show, I took them in standard res rather than my usual high res because I didn’t trust my SL machine enough to handle high res snapshots during a fashion show very well.

This dress is from “Pretty Magic” and I rather liked it. It comes in lots of colors, which is a good thing, indeed.

There were men’s fashions at the show too, including these cute men’s pj’s from “Pretty Magic”

Crucial Creations had these fine looking leather pants, that didn’t fully rez for me until the model was backstage and changing again. The texture on them is faboo. I’d have snuck back for more photos, but they were changing pretty fast.

I wanted to see more of what I did see, and my curiosity was piqued enough that I’m going to visit the designers presented in the show, but here’s hoping for a fashion show that keeps in mind the limitations of the platform for the average SL user.

Faced with the dilemma of what the hell to wear to the iVillage Fashion Extravaganza, the most hyped SL fashion show ever, I gave up and went as a nun. Quite often when I don’t know what to wear, I trundle around as Sister Doolittle. This is, in fact, my only outfit folder and I drag it onto myself alarmingly often. I don’t even have to pick hair!

Truly, it is fabulous garb, made for me by Raven Rosebud of Raven’s Creations. (No, you cannot have one; that is what “custom” means. Go buy the one Salome bought when I wouldn’t let her have one, either. Yes, greed is a sin, but then so is envy. Get over it.)

Anyway, I was truly shocked that my 100+ prim rosary belt didn’t crash the fashion show sim. But it didn’t, which just goes to show that gluttonous prims do not make baby Jesus cry. What does make baby Jesus cry, however, is having to turn up THREE HOURS IN ADVANCE to get a seat for a one hour show. Seriously, I was shocked when our interpid Round Up reporter Arraiin Grayson IMd to suggest I grab a seat while the grabbing was still good, but indeed when I arrived, the sim was filling up fast.

And despite the fact that I was surrounded by lovely, talented, amusing fashionistas on all sides, I was so bored I thought my teeth were going to bleed. We were all so bored. It got so bad that I started hosting impromptu trivia and dispensing cash prizes, and I don’t even like trivia. (And someone at iVillage owes me $500L, damnit.)

Anyway, the iVillage crew did a lot of things right. The stage setup and seating were excellent. The show took place on a four corners plot across sims, so the crowds were both well managed and distributed via a HUD. The venue looked fantastic and was pretty light on textures to be loaded, which is clever. There was audio feed, but all the commentary was delivered via standard chat, and that is for sure the way to do it.

And when the models hit the runway, my SL install hit the ground, and that was it for me and the fashion show. I really honestly did want to attend, and I did attempt to log back into the sim(s), but SL just was not having it. And for the few moments when I was actually able to be there, nothing the models where wearing would rezz for me.

So if you want to see all the fashions I didn’t see either, check out the Second Style round up. How she got all those textures to rezz I have no idea, but Celebrity apparently owns the computer version of the Rock of Gibralter.

Having had, oh, three hours to think about it, this is how I would do a large-scale fashion event. (Read on if you’re interested in Monday morning quarterbacking…)

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