Hey, everybody! I’ve been on summer vaca for a couple months now, but I’m back and ready to start reviewing again. Anything happen while I was away? Wait… Salome did what?
I’m kidding, of course. But before we pack it up this week, I wanted to get one more review out there, because I’ve been dying to tell everybody about Ornamental Life ever since a friend led me there several weeks ago. The store’s owner, Shir Dryke, wrote a fantastic SL fashion blog - also called Ornamental Life - for about a year before deciding to switch to creating the fashion herself. That experience really shows in her clothes - they’re creative and particularly well-drawn, but it’s obvious that Shir doesn’t take it all too seriously. Just a look at the whimsical names she gives each of her designs will tell you that.
This is a tube top called Antonia Smiles and I’m wearing it in three of the available colors, named Dusk Butterflies (red), Under the African Sun (yellow), and Happy Clouds (blue). It’s hard to pick one thing I adore most about Ornamental Life, but if I had to it would be Shir’s use of color. Most everything is bright and saturated and really just pops off the screen at you, in the way that real clothes just can’t. Yes, that means that the colors aren’t extremely realistic. But ultra-realism be damned - we’re in a world where we can fly, after all.
Now, Antonia Smiles is a tube top, which I realize is a garment you can find loads of for free all over the grid. There’s no getting around the fact that you’re going to have EMS when you wear it. And I will freely admit tube tops are not the most creative when it comes to the lines of the garment itself. Blah blah blah… with colors like these, who cares? It also helps that, as with all of Shir’s designs, the textures of Antonia Smiles are extremely well-detailed and shaded. If it’s wrong to love them because they’re tube tops, I don’t want to be right.
Call me crazy, but I like to dress appropriately for the RL season, even in SL, and this top called Summer Feels Wee fits the bill perfectly. (I’m wearing Sprinkling Ocean.) When it comes to layers, Ornamental Life is just fantastic - Summer Feels Wee, for example, comes with the bikini top as a separate piece from the sheer overlay, and both are on just about every layer you could want. I’m glad to see more and more designers around the grid are making good use of SL’s layers, giving you pieces on multiple layers so you can have more flexibility in how you wear what you buy with your hard-earned Lindens.
Until recently, Shir focused her attention on creating tops, and that’s still the bulk of the inventory for sale at Ornamental Life. But lately, she’s released some dresses, such as the Wings of Desire dress that I’m wearing here. (The color is Blood Oath.) I’m thrilled to see her branching out. Wings of Desire comes with two prim skirt options, and while they’re both great I can’t seem to stop wearing the ballerina version.
Oh, and there’s one other feature of Wings of Desire that I’ll mention, just because I know it will make the boss lady happy. The glitch pants that come with the dress are actually panties, and cute ones at that! I’d even consider wearing the top with the glitch pants on their own, as a pretty little one-piece swimsuit.
This really is just the beginning of the cuteness that’s for sale over at Ornamental Life. I’d suggest getting over there to check the rest of the store out. Between the whimsical designs and names, the bold colors, and the quirky details in each piece, Shir’s clothes just scream fun to me. And isn’t fun what we came to Second Life for in the first place?
Where to buy
Ornamental Life
http://slurl.com/secondlife/PopFuzz/97/57/34
Antonia Smiles: L$ 140, fatpack of 5 colors L$ 560
Summer Feels Wee: L$150, fatpack of 5 colors L$ 600
Wings of Desire: L$220, fatpack of 5 colors L$ 880
