Beer Barrel Goth

I was in one of those moods, trying to figure out what I wanted to wear next....I was actually wearing trousers, a simple shirt and short hair at the time, believe it or not. Donna Upshaw-Bouscario of FE made a suggestof jeans or goth...said I had to get past the "Ice Princess" That made me laugh, because Grace Kelly is one of my style icons.

So I headed into inventory, and remembered I had a recent dress from Silentsparrow, Selador, I first saw it on retro-fashionista Ceejay Writer in Seraph City. It comes with 3 skirt options.
:
The more gothy victoriany steampunky Woofy version. (Thats what it's actually called in inventory, Woofy!) Nice layering effect on the skirt and underskirt.



Circle, your basic circle skirt:



And pencil, which is what Miss Ceejay was wearing when I first saw it and NEEDED it. I so love a good pencil skirt:



You probably noticed there's a pastie option, which is on the undershirt layer, along with the regular low cut pretty bodice. Boobie shot!



I had these antique embossed tall laced boots from Arwen's Creations. Sort of Victoriany sort of steampunky, with a high, but sturdy heel. They are VERY nice and I want them in RL. I have 3 pairs of these and keep intending to go back and the other colors.



With Truth Andrea Hair, which I think of as Counselor Troi hair, and a 5th and Oxford "Fair NightFall 1" skin heavy on the dark eyshadow with fuchsia lips.



When Mrs. Upshaw-Bouscario saw my pictures, she described them as "Beer Barrel Goth", explaining the post title.

SLURL to SilentSparrow

SLURL to Arwen's Creations

SLURL to Truth Hair

SLURL to 5th & Oxford

Friend Clare!

Clare Sorbet is one of my best friends in SL...redhead, fashionista, and quite honestly nice. Herself and a few other retro-fashionistas (and redheads) of my acquaintance are a sort of a family. We share shopping finds, hang out with each other, etc.


Today Clare was wearing an adorable floral print dress from Toki Doki, very cute and sort of housedress-y looking.



Her hair today is Truth Evelyn, which I also have, in the Cherry color (I wear Truth hair in Blood). She says her skin is from Pink Fuel, "Ember" The Pink Fuel skins that I've seen tend towards the girly cute youtfulness side of the spectrum, and this one is quite adorable on Clare.




The shoes are Mary Jane Courts from GOS. A simple mary jane pump with a moderately high, but sturdy heel, and rounded point toe, that resembles a "Character shoe" that dancers use but with a higher heel.

Gender juxtaposition, and what it says about us.

I was talking on FE about mesh hair, which is a whole 'nother topic I'm not going to get into at this time, and it was suggested I check out a hair store I'd never been to. Now I'd seen prim hair from this place on other people and it looked fine to me, I had been meaning to go there anyway sometime.

I did the usual thing, checking out demos and whatnot, hobnobbing with fashionfolk, but as I was looking around I realized the hair display vendors bothered me for a reason.

This is the guy hair. This place has some VERY nice guy hair and if you're a guy avatar, GO now! You won't be disappointed.



Those are attractive guy avatars in my opinion. They look like adults, old enough to buy alcohol and even old enough to have graduated college and have jobs.

These are some of the female hair displays:





Putting it bluntly, those avatars look a LOT younger than the male displays. The bodies may have boobs, but the faces look to my eyes chubby cheeked young girls wearing a lot of makeup, not even old enough for high school. And most certainly not as mature looking as the males.

That bothered me...to me it was a sort of "Toddlers and Tiaras" effect. Now I know that in certain SL communities there's a trend of dressing and looking like a part Japanese cutesy anime inspired girl, and there's nothing wrong of that. It was the juxtaposition of the two, manly adult and cutesy girl face with knockers that bothered me and what it said about the fashion community of SL. I think that if the guys has been your standard slender Bishonen anime-inspired guy/young Bieber type, essentially the male version of the female displays, it wouldn't have bothered me so much.

But it did. But it's not like I didn't think the hair wasn't nice hair, it was...sigh.

Alaskametro Basix lingerie

I've known Alaska Metropolitan for aaaages. She was probably my first designer friend. She recently dropped me some lingerie sets and lace dress sets. Now the dresses aren't really me...but the lingerie...is well...well lets just say I REALLY like the lingerie, even though it is as the name says:

Basix. Every femmy person out there has some basic "nice" lingerie. We're all searching for our perfect combination of fit and style.






Yes, I went a touch artistic with the pics, but Alaska always does good display ads (she pretty much wrote the book on designing a good display) so it's not a big deal.

Nice isn't it...only comes in basic muted nudey colors even the black is a sort of soft grey. You get sheer, opaque and sheer lace version with choice between straps or strapless in each set. Anyway when I first put them on I was like HOLY CRAP, that has got to be inspired by the old style Body by Victoria or the old iPex. (Though in RL I wear the Cacique stuff. made by the same company, same stuff, only sold at Lane Bryant rather than Victoria's Secret) The biofit 7-way is probably closest to it these days.

Anyway it's a very nice everyday bra that I want in a LOT more colors and patterns. If you look at the clasp in back which I don't show, you'll see that it's a 3 hook bra, which it would be in RL. It's also inexpensive.

As far as I know Alaska doesn't have a in-world store these days, only her alaskametro Store on the Marketplace

She also does makeups, nail tattoos, brows and whatnot, she's a makeupista in RL.

Ruminations on a dress.

This post is not really about this dress, but more about what came to my mind as I was wearing this dress today:



A simple black sweaterdress from Salt. I have accessorized it with a Truth Hair called "Jean", one of my go-to 5th & Oxford skins, Shiny Things Kelseys, and the Carmen hosiery from Insolence.

I was wearing this dress while socializing. For my sake I usually don't wear cocktail or evening dresses in the daytime (unless the event or venue is formal), so I have a bunch of go-to daytime wear. Simple dresses, suits, blouses, sweaters and skirts that I wear during the day. I want to look "nice" and most of my daytime wear would be considered appropriate in a dressy office. The thing is, I am often the dressiest dressed person at social places...and often the most covered up. I like my style, I mean after all, I have Audrey Hepburn as a Fashion Icon, but I don't want to be perceived as a "haughty fashionista", and I'm worried my look does that. And I must admit...I was wearing that dress at a lesbian venue, I know what you're thinking now and THAT is another story. Yes I suppose I could wear jeans and t-shirts when socializing, but that is not "me". It's hard to explain.

Is there anyone else out there who feels similarly?

SLURL to Salt

Her name is Amaris (Adam n Eve's new Amaris skin)

She was sitting in the University Library, she looked as if she was waiting for someone, she was a little bit dressed up for a coed, she told me she preferred dressing nicely. She was the girl next door, sweet, in the full bloom of young womanhood...her name was Amaris."

CC wears 5th & Oxford skins, everyone knows this. I am VERY skin picky, and while I freely acknowledge that there's a lot of great skin out there....I don't often wear it because it's not "CC". I have some very specific needs in a skin and it's hard to find my perfect skin. There are many who don't know this...but if all of my Roslin-made 5th & Oxford skin disappeared from my inventory and the entire grid, I would scream and tear my hair out in agony...and then I would head to Adam n Eve. Because even though I wear my Roslin-made skins almost all of the time, I DO wear other skins..and if you do see me in another skin these days, it's probably an Adam n Eve. Which is kind of funny, because I jumped from Adam n Eve to the TaP Deux's back in 2006. I have always considered Sachi-skin as I call it, to be among the nicest in SL. Well worth a trip to check them out.

Amaris is not my perfect skin...its a little young for me, but it is a VERY nice sweet and youthful skin and well worth blogging. (I almost blogged her previous Harper release, it made me look like Harper Beresford who did a nice job of blogging it, since it was inspired by her.)



Okay look at this squeezable tush. Isn't it adorable.



Goes back to ogling the tush again.



Nice face isn't it. Smudged eyeliner, soft neutral eyeshadow, simple makeup suitable for a college coed. Very pretty and youtful as I said.

The outfit itself is from Adam n Eve, mostly. The Sweater is the CC Sweater...and yes it's named for me. Look, it's no real big thing unless you have hair, a skin or a gown after you, those are the real prizes for fashionista bragging rights. :-) Ha ha ha. It's a nice simple little cropped cardigan..it comes in other colors as well.

The shirt is the Billie Linen shirt...which has my favorite white shirt collar in SL, while cleavagey it is classic.

The skirt is the shorter skirt from the Cora set (which comes with a very nice ruffly cleavagey poet shirt itself.

Tights are from Mon Tissu

Boots are the Madison Alpha Boots from Deco.

Glasses from Insolence

You simply can't get the jewelry and eyes anymore...I miss you Miriel Enfield.

Adam n Eve is in Genesis, of course. Go...NOW! Maybe you'll be "having Sachi's baby!" (an old reference to her old group title for her fans)

Undercover Tableau Girl

You've seen them, we all have. At Mon Tissu and Tres Blah in Lula, FD, and Clawtooth in Tableau. I've always called them "Tableau Girls"







Where did they come from?

The shapes of the original "Tableau Girl" designers, that's what. Google search for Nylon Pinckney and Elka Lahane for example. The shoppers saw the shapes in the displays and pretty much adopted them themselves. Originally it was somewhat honest smart-alecky reaction to the more traditional barbie-ish glamour girl avatars and styles, a la Dazzle and other cocktail/party/formal designers, since the Tableau crowd did mostly hand drawn casuals at that time.

But now.....lets admit it, it's become something of a parody of itself and has somewhat taken over. I was there at Tres Blah last week during a sale....and I overdosed on Oracul Maidenly, sourpuss faces, and thighs so far apart you can drive a truck through. Avatars that don't look "pretty" but like nicotine addicted 12 year olds wearing their 22 year old sisters clothes and makeup.

Yes, I know I shouldn't judge, but I like seeing pretty, and seeing some Tableau girls overly photoshopped, gaussian blurred and shadowed pics makes it hard to see the actual quality of the stuff! And the exaggerated bodies means the stuff will look somewhat different. But they have great stuff, sure they tend to over accesorize, but damn do they have some nice stuff...I think...but I can't tell. Yes I know there are not many review blogs anymore that's part of the problem.

I'm not saying that avatars shouldn't be curvy or have junk in the trunk...but there's good variety and bad variety. To much exaggeration in anything, height, boobehs, or hips makes for a bad shape for showing off fashion in a pleasing way.

I also can't tell Tableau Girl hair apart,has a sort of sameness to it, at least to my eyes.

Former Boss Salome also makes a slight of a reference to this issue in this post but she's not really commenting on the girls themselves.

I'm not going to SLURL The stuff, though that bag and skirt are Mon Tissu and nice. Shoes are G Field "Alex" First picture was taken using standard Caliah style Windlight settings, 2 and 3 were taken with shadows and whatnot on.

Donna Flora Bon Bon

Donna Flora just released "Bon Bon" A cute cocktail dress with a lovely bubble skirt meets 18th century sort of look to it. L$350, four colors, this black that I have, a sort of cream, a pale lavender and a sort of fuchsia pink.



Yes, the skirt is a rigid sculpty, which means it's not the prettiest skirt to sit in or do the more athletic dances in, but it really can't be helped with a bubble skirt.

SLURL to Donna Flora in Bonin

The hair is an Amacci, Jessica, a nice sweet lil updo with a sort of side swept short bang thing
going on.



SLURL to Amacci

Shoes are G Field "Eve"

SLURL to G Field

Jewellery is a "Princess Christina set, from a merchant I found via marketplace Rhiannon Nitely:

Link to her store on Marketplace

Skin is, of course, a 5th & Oxford:

SLURL to 5th & Oxford in Nouveau

And yes, I have my GT220 back in my box, I have a new power supply, Yay!

Going to be RL busy

So you won't see me so much in SL....an upcoming RL move so packing and stuff.