The Unofficial Second Life® Fashion and Shopping Blog

When I suggested that a few of us do up final posts with some of our favorite things, I didn’t quite realize how difficult it would be to choose. My top 10 ran into extreme danger of being a top 1000. So I cheated a little and managed a sly sort of dirty dozen (with a few extra dozen shout-outs).

1. Patootie Hair From ETD in Chestnut Brown - my preference since June, 2006. If I’m not wearing Patootie, I’m almost always wearing either the Sleek Bob or Pigtail Braids from Rita Groshomme’s Empyrean Emporium.
2. Courtney Glasses from Persenickety! - seated happily upon my virtual nose since January, 2007.
3. The custom choker made for me by Jackal Ennui (of Lassitude & Ennui) sometime in May of 2006. I have no memory of what she charged me, but I’m sure it wasn’t nearly enough. I love it every bit as much today as I did the day she dropped it on me.
4. Babydoll eyes by E’s - Handpainted Fantasy Eyes - first brown and now gray but my first choice since July, 2006.

5. Squee-tastic virtual dress-up decadence from Simone! and Style Starts Here.

6. Lingerie from Insolence…because I love being a girl in frilly, feminine, delicate things.

7. My Alice in Wonderland themed garden home (yes, that is a hooka smoking caterpillar). About 2000 prims of Heart Garden Centre plants, Kriss Lehmann’s Botanicals, Shade’s fantasy items, and Animania critters.

The rest are too overwhelming to photograph.

8. Prim shoes. I love them. I need them. I’m addicted to them. Especially Shiny Things Spring Stilettos, Lassitude & Ennui Eva Pumps, Prim Seduction’s Beloveds and Uptowns, Thigh High Boots from Abyss, and Strike bowling shoes from Jeepers Creepers. Trust me, this is a *very* abbreviated list.

9. Prim Jewelry (see: Prim Shoes). Mine, mine all mine favorites include the Heirloom sets, my Millefiori pendants, and the Alternating Chanel and Square Diamond necklace by EMJ, the Tapa Set by Kiki Miranda of soon-to-launch Faux Posh, Pirate Beads by Accessories By Eolande, the Elena sets from Lassitude & Ennui (my above mentioned choker (#3) goes without saying. ), the Scheherezade sets from Shiny Things, and the Drop Circle sets from EarthStones.

10. Well textured virtual wrappers for our digital paper doll playground, created with glorious detail. My favorite labels (of present and past) include Blaze, Casa Del Shai, Ceres, Comme il Faut (which absorbed Bossa Nova) Details By Nonna Hedges, Icing, Ingenue, Insolence, Mischief, Muism, Nicky Ree, Nicola Escher, Nyte ‘n’ Day, PixelDolls, Simone!, Solange, and Style Starts Here. This list could easily go on forever, but those are my biggies.

11. My must-have accessories: Huddles from Keiki Lemieux, and MystiTool from Mystical Cookie. If you are navigating the grid without them, you’re playing at a disadvantage.

12. Last, but never least, has to send out a nod to slow dances from Bits and Bobs, Dance 18 from Animazoo, and fashion poses by Reel Expression.

And, yes, trust me, there could have been lots more

If you are a regular viewer of SLCN’s Meta Makeover program then you may have already caught this week’s episode where I had the delightful opportunity to make over a London townhouse rented by a sweet girl, Elizabetta Westland with some of my decor items from Facade Furnishings.

The first part of the program showcases the wonderful London SIMs (Chelsea in particular where this makeover took place) and the second segment is where you get to see my pixels and listen to the “real” me (yes, I promise I’ll work on my inclination to giggle and babble on mic). Tragically, my high-heeled boots from SLink don’t really rez properly so it looks like I’m wearing big white sculpties for most the show, but c’est la vie. Hopefully, you all know me better

One small point of clarification regarding something Timber comments on while he’s discussing textures. In fact, most of the textures I use at Esprit Decor and Facade Furnishings are *not* 256×256. We were talking about so many things over the course of the make-over regarding optimization that a miscommunication was bound to happen. What I actually explained was that, with very few exceptions, all of the textures I sell and employ are a maximum of 512×512 with many of my tiling decor textures being 256×256 whenever possible. Almost all of the textures on Facade items are made “to scale” with the largest side being a maximum of 512.

This was an overwhelmingly positive experience, even though I missed the studio taping and was unable to join the gang for the opening segment (giving them all the chance to get a word in edgewise). If you have a virtual space that needs making-over, then I hope you’ll consider submitting to the show. Hey - you never know who your designer could be

This year for my birthday, Gracie girl got me some toucans for the Freudian Slip to go along with the herons, pelicans, squids, and music monkeys that hold watch over the decks while no one’s dancing.

These toucans, like everything from Duggy Bing’s Cartoonimals, are drop-dead adorable. Their style is more exaggerated than realistic, which is an aesthetic I find I’m drawn to more and more within our virtual habitat.

The flying toucan model allows you to set a number of locations after rez so that you can program in a flight path for those who might want to give chase in hopes of fruit loops. The seated version remains perkily in place, opening its beak from time to time and giving a slight tilt of head.

There is a happy zoo at the Cartoonimals store, from door-scratching kitties to big ear-flapping elephants to small skittering turtles and even flying aliens in mini spaceships. I can’t speak for the entire inventory, but the selections I brought home were well adjusted to havok4 living and operated from low-lag scripts. This was a delightful change over some of the more lag-heavy wildlife I’d encountered in the past.

Unable to be contented by just toucans, I hurried over and begged another friend for some flamingos and treated myself to a hug-tastic monkey for the Slip. Then I discovered a few wearables lingering amid the funky critters, and it was all over but the shopping.

Yes, that’s right. Jammies. Could you die? These pjs come in kitty cat, skunk, elephant and monkey style sets that all include boy and girl friendly pjs in different color options. The tops and bottoms are nice, but pretty basic and uninspired. They’ll do the job for any pajama party you’ve got to crash, however, and no one’s really going to care once they catch sight of your slippers - which are just about the most squee-tastic novelty slippers in all SL. I am ALL about these tail-wagging, sweet-faced kitty slippers. The bottom prim is white and tintable so you have a little bit of leeway when it comes to matching ‘em up and THE EYES BLINK. Seriously. Can you live without a pair? No, I didn’t think so.

The next “oh my god, I have to have that!” is the Carmen Miranda hat. Over 350 prims in 2 pieces, this work of art is prim decadence. The minute you put it on, you get this flamboyant need for bright red tango dresses and feel the irresistible urge to wiggle a la Copacabana with Groucho Marx. I cannot defend how often you’ll have use for it or why it’s so damn necessary. It’s just…so damn necessary. From the pineapple crown to the dangling grapes and peeking monkey, I cannot imagine anything that has tickled my little-girl dress-up monster more than this hat. He gives you three sizes to choose from for the base and they all flawlessly work with the upper attachment.

I may have to beg for matching fruit themed jewelry, but I haven’t stopped squeeing yet.

Last, but so far from least, are these little pet carrier backpacks, complete with baby animals you can wear and adore. When I first got to tinkering with these, I was disappointed because the backpacks only came in a really large size that took me the better part of half an hour to fit - and even then, it wasn’t a good fit. After I explained to Duggy that most of us girls weren’t amazon women from the moon, however, he quickly obliged and made small and medium carrier straps that provide a much nicer fit with a lot less tinkering.

You know you gotta have one, and let’s face it - don’t we all sometimes crave a reason to shout “keep your damn hands off my monkey!”

Run over to Cartoonimals and you’re bound to find something that is your cuppa. If I’m wrong - I’ll eat my hat. *grin*

(Read More | Where to Buy)

Those of us who don metadentities are accustomed to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune — not to mention the love/hate relationship that mainstream media has with virtual worlds and those of us who inhabit them. So when my friend, Persephone Milk (she of fabulous Persnickity glasses and Musical Alchemy grand pianos), told me she was going to be interviewed by her local FOX News station for a piece on SL, I confess, I was worried for her.

My concern stemmed from a few places. Wired’s recent glorification of the grief culture has made it seem like even media outlets that should know better will stoop to playing the “you geeks take all this virtual stuff too seriously” card when it suits their purpose. And, of course, there is the fact that anyone who knows Seph understands that the person behind the keyboard is a man — something fairly common and ho-hum in our universe, but which could have been taken out of context and portrayed any number of ways.

WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEO CLIP HERE

I am thrilled beyond words that the piece was actually handled very professionally. It focused on the business end of Seph’s endeavors, but it did touch on her creativity and that of Seph’s RL counterpart, if only briefly.

So much of SL’s media coverage focuses on what big-name RL business is invading - completely ignoring our home-grown geniuses and artisans and the rest of it tends to drool over Scandal X or Trend Y. So, score one for the home team and YAY Seph!

(Many thanks to Stroker for editing and getting this up so that we could all enjoy it!)