1-800-Bettie's

When I saw the post on PXP I just had to take a look. Retro dresses? Cute shoes?

I popped and drooled. Drooled big time because I'm broke. But I have screenshots. I was in a rush so the textures weren't fully rezzed, but it's enough. Not long after leaving, I got an IM from Roslin Petion of Tete a Pied suggesting I take a visit. (She knows I like a bit of Retro now and then)

The dresses, the suits! For your innner Rosalind Russell

The hair! and the stockings, with seams and the classic stocking reinforced heel

The lingerie and the Girl Friday ensemble!

And the shoes!

All you classy dames with a taste for retro need to grab your pin money and take the trolley to: 1-800-Bettie's at Giyeok 156,113,52

Or get your snappy suit and fedora wearing innamorata to buy them for you. Like I actually saw happen in the store!

Fashionista Transparency:
Seen in World: Yes, and saw a customer wearing one of the suits, hair, shoes and stockings
Review copy: No, (I wish)
Friends list: Never heard of this store before PXP mentioned it and it's very new anyway. I hadn't heard of the owners, Fey Fuller and Jacqueline Boehm, either.

New tracksuit at OPIUM everyday

And it came along at a good time too, it filled a niche in my wardrobe that needed filling out.

I can't remember where I heard about it first, but it was either the notification group or Alaska Metropolitan's blog

Anyway I jumped into SL last night to get it, and headed to the store where Alaska Metropolitan was renovating. Prim limits are her bane right now. She, like myself, prefers builds that look "real" like RL boutiques, and the OPIUM stores are among my favorite small boutique builds in the game.

I purchased the tracksuit, which comes in the plum version and a tintable version all for only 100$L It has the OPIUM "O" on the jacket front and the pant rear. It looks like real everyday activewear, which is what I expected from OPIUM Everday.

The detail of the zipper and pant drawstrings is a nice touch.

Fashionista Transparency:
Seen in World: Yes
Review copy: No
Alaska on Friends list: Yes, and I'm a member of her group.

Hail to the Trollop, Celebrity Trollop

Celebrity Trollop's blog was among one of the first SL fashion blogs I found and I pored over it for shopping advice and fashion tips. I also enthusiastically e-mailed her in my early days and she was nice enough to respond with more good advice. Thanks so much Celebrity.

Not only is she a fashionista blogger she's one the guiding lights behind the Second Style SL fashion magazine. YOu can read it in game or via PDF on your computer.in PDF form. It's professionally done, and putting it bluntly, is a better read than Cosmo these days.

She's also a designer muse, having had skins and fashions inspired by and named after her, and she has one of the best names in Second Life. Let it roll of your tongue, Celebrity Trollop.

Here's to you, Celebrity, Hurrah!

A homage to two lovely fashionistas, Sabrina and Salome

It all started so innocently, with a trip to Tete a Pied to see if I missed anything, Which I did, there's a set of "black and white film" skins.

While I was there I saw the newly installed dressing rooms so I decided to try them out and used the teleport thingy. They're good sized rooms, no just a cubicle, so you can get a good look at your avatar from many angles and distances. While there I decided to check out some things in my inventory and try them on. I found a tartan plaid swimwear set that was a freebie, an dput it on. Then I thought, hey, this would look really cute with ETD Patootie. So I changed my hair. And then I put on my glasses. Hmmmmm, this looks familiar.

Then I tried on a pink pajama set, that didn't rez properly the last time I tried it on. Then I thought, I should wear my button nose bear(from the Toy Shop at the Dickens Fair), and how about this cute hair from Panache in red.. Hmmm, this also looks familiar.

Sabrina and Salome really need to post on their blog more.


Sabrina Doolittle's and Salome Strangelove's Linden Lifestyles Blog was one of the first fashion blogs I found when I searched for info on how to become "pretty". And I truly appreciate all their hard work they put into it and thanks to them (and other bloggers and the content creators) I'm "pretty".

They blog about business owners and content providers but rarely get blogged about themselves so here's to Sabrina and Salome, fashionistas and entrepreneurs.


Chez Petite is the brainchild of Sabrina, who saw a need for low prim furniture for new householders. It's also reasonably priced and very cute. If I ever own property and want to furnish a residence, Chez Petite will be my first stop.

Here's a lovely bed:

And a good sized chair:

And a large sofa:

Here's a tai chi mat and meditation pillow with built in poses:

There's even beach blankets and furniture for your beach house/party.

Esprit Decor is owned by Salome and sells testures for every need.

Including lovely hair textures, so there's no need to steal them if you're a new hair designer in need of quality textures.

If I ever need textures, this will be my first stop.


Bon Vivant is Sabrina and Salome's joint venture, it's sort of like those real life "two stylish fashionable women friends who are masters of organizing/decorating open up a catering/events/party planning" business.

Looks like they have everything a party needs.

They could probably get you an elephant if you wanted one. (Psst, if you ever need an elephant, I'm your gal.:-)


Fashionista Transparency:

Seen in World: Yes, I've visited their stores, obviously. :-)
Friends list: Sabrina: Yes. Salome: No. I'm not on any groups related to their business ventures
Review copies: No, I just wanted to show my appreciation for how much their blog helped me.

Tete a Pied Deux Preview (and launch)

I'm a member of the Tete a Pied announcement group and received the notecard for the Fairy Tale themed launch party on Saturday at 1 PM SLT, Odds are I won't be able to attend. :-( but today, there was avery special early epreview for members of the TaP group and luckily I was online when it was anounced.

I popped right over.

The new building is larger and taller. The displays and demos are up and running. The whole building was loaded almost immediately upon entering. (I luv the new client!)

I saw CJ right off and Roslin showed up within seconds. She pointed me to the demos and I was trying to figure out which ones was similar to the NYC shade of Tete Une. She then said "you wear NYC right?" and then pointed me to the shades.

The new shades are a bit diffeernt than the old ones and are named differently. There's basic shades like Rose and Bronzage and then Light medium and dark shades withi them. I didn't look at them all but here's a quick apporximation of the ones I tried.

Rose Light, it's not as white as a dresden but very pale, suitable for goths and bloodsuckers. :-)

Rose Medium, similar to the Paris.of Tete Une

Rose Dark, similar to the NYC.

Bronzage light, imagine if NYC used one of those moisturizers with subtle self tanner for a light glow and that's what it's like

Bronzage Medium: Hollywood, though IMHO it's just a touch darker.


The makeups with in shade families do not use the old names, which though sometimes comfusing Like having a paris makeup in the NYC shade and NYC makeup in the paris shade, I liked.

Th new naming system is grouped in style families, like Ingenue, Enigma, Sultry, and Sophisticate.with four makeups in each style.

Ingenue is very light makeup sometimes with freckles, it made my avatar look very young and teenagery.

Enigma is very fashion forward, tending towards lighter lips and intensely pigmented shadows, somewhat like the L'Oreal HIP shadows. The shadows were awesome.

Sultry is your standard evening makeups. tending towards smoky eyes.

Sophisticated, are strong lips neutral eyes makeups.

I tried on every Rose Dark demo.:-)

They're obviously TaP skins, they have the shading and the prettyness, but they look more modern and sophisticated. The lips OMG the lips.they're fuller than the Tete Une lips (meaning they'll work better on more shapes) and they're gorgeous. Not so glossy as the Tete Une lips though.

The noses are great too, I like them better than the Tete Une noses.

I saw skins that reminded me of the looks of a few famous fashionista's namely Six Kennedy, Celebrity Trollop and Sylfie Minogue. Putting it bluntly, whether you're a sophisticate fashionista or an escort I think you'll find a skin you'll love in the new series. Especially with the new cleavage shading, which is really something to see. I was wearing the Witchy black dress from Luxe and when I tried on a skin it was like va va voom.(My avatar's breast size is at 66, IIRC.) I didn't do a "kitty" examination but the pubic hair looks very similar in style to that of Tete Une. I forgot to check if they have the french mani/pedi of the Tete Une skins.

As a member of the TaP group I got a gift skin, I chose the Sophisticate 1 makeup. and here it is:

One thing you'll notice are the brows, this time red or blonde brows are speacil aorder for an additional charge. when I get the money to purchase the skins and I most certainly will I will get red brows. Thats one complaint, I'd like to see red brows in the vendors. I got spoiled by Tete Une that way. :-)


Single skins are 1000L a four pack is 2500L, note the pricing is different than Tete Une. I don't begrudge the higher four pack cost because she was practically giving the Tet Une away at 1200 for the four pack.I got the entire 14 makeup Tete Une NYC collection for what was it less than 5000L, lets see four pack at 1200 + 10 at 350 (via the makeup box), yep. Steal. They may be discontinued though, I didn't see them in the new build, so pick them up if you want them. They are still among the prettiest sweetest demure and lovely hand drawn skins out there if your shape works with the lips.

Roslin and CJ are thinking about doing something similar to the makeup box but haven't decided yet on whether they are doing anything and what they will do if they do decide to do something.

In summary the Tete Deux are among the highest quality hand drawn skins out there and I will continue to suggest a visit to the store for all.

Fashionista Transparency:

Seen in World: Yes
Review copy: No, this post is based on the demos in the store itself.I'm not planning on becoimg a formal reviewer, that's Celebrity Trollop's, and Sabrina/Salome's job. :-)
Roslin on Friend list: Yes, she friended me today. and I'm in her TaP group.

Most wanted Fashionistas, at Dazzle.

If you have visited the Dazzle sim recently you have seen the sim being fleshed out with streets, lamps, building for Dazzle Home Design (which looks like a RL furniture store)and Crush and the Ice Cream parlor (it's not open yet, but the big ice cream cone sign can't be missed). It's one of the most "real" looking shopping emporiums I've seen. You may have also noticed two wanted signson the posts outside of Dazzle and Luxe.
,p>

,p>

Made me laugh out loud when I saw them. Flavor like this is always fun.


Also the shoes and accessories are back at Dazzle, off to the right as you enter the store.

I really must say how impressed I am at the new build, it is much more pleasant to shop in.

There's new stuff at Dazzle too, a pretty LBD, a 20$L customer appreciation pack and much much more. So everyone stop by and buy, you know you want to.

The new SL client 1.12 It rocks for me.

I have mentioned the "Gray square" issues I experience. But no longer. The new client fixes that.instead of textures waiting to load until I hover the mouse over the gray square, they actually load...by themselves. And the client actually uses my bandwidth like it's supposed to. Fricking amazing, Popping into the gurl 6 location at Euphoria stepping away from the keyboard for a minute walking into that huge warehouse and not seeing a single gray square. Or walking through ETD and having the textures for the back part of the store being there when I walk there.

The frame rate was even better, though still slow. I actually saw 8fps!

The only issues I saw were all inventory related, if you do a lot of item manipulation/moving/copying it will slow down.

But SL is much more enjoyable to play than before. Good work Linden Lab, now keep it up. :-)

Slurlblogging

Ordinal Malaprop, scripter ad alta has created a HUD script called SLurlblogger that can send notes with the SLurl of your current location from a chat channel to an email account. But for me, whose SL running machine machine is not so powerful, it's useful for notes in general. Rather than loading up Notepad and using up valuable RAM and CPU cycles I can just use the HUD and e-mail notes to myself for later usage,either in this blog or otherwise.

It's available (for free) at:

Caledon 83,36,30 - O
rdinal Malaprop's shoppe in Caledon steampunk weaponry, gadgets and freebies,

And it's also at (also for free)

SLurlblogger on SL Boutique

SLurlblogger on SL exchange

New releases at Dazzle.

Normally I don't blog new releases at Dazzle, Ginny already has tons of fans blogging about her pretty and shiny. But in the newest release, she has some lovely (short skirted ) suits, that are to die for,a nd if my Linden blance was healthier theyd already be sitting in my inventory. She's got a short wall diagonally right of the entrance where she's putting the new releases with a Big "New" sign on them. Can't miss em.

So go to the Dazzle store in the Dazzle sim and buy buy buy, you know you want to.

Skin 2.0 from OPIUM

Alaska Metropolitan, designer of the OPIUM line dropped notecard about her launch party for her new Skin 2.0 line. I probalby won't be able to attend, RL getting in the way, but if you like a quality hand-drawn skin like I do, you should check them out. They look gorgeous in the images I've seen. It's on Sunday the 20th from 1-3 pm SLT (Using the SL URL from Pixel Pinup Online Must start using SLURLblogger)

• SKIN 2.0 at Nimrod Yaffle

You'll be able to meet Alaska, along wtih purchasing the new skin at a discount, having a chance at prizes and have the opportunity to get the 2.0 version of a Skin 1.0 version if you show up wearing it.

One other thing of note, Alaska will still be supporting the Skin 1.0 for it's fans, coolness. :-)

In the interest of fashionista Transparency: Alaska Metropolitan is in my friends list, I'm a fan of her fashions, but do not own any Skin 1.0 (though I do have a couple of pre 1.0 skins she made) Also my favorite shape that is my default is one she designed.

Whip it good.

Goin back, back, back to school.

I have found that one fun thing to do in SL is to check what classes are available. Every class I've taken so far has provided me with useful tips and information, even on such things as clothing handling. (Did ou know that the default attachment for boxes will soon become the hand rather than the head? No more bald heads with boxes)

So far, I've taken Inventory arrangement, clothing handling, basic building and make a devo hat classes. Yes, that's right, I made a Devo hat and it was fun and I learned more little tips.

Actually I tried making the hat as soon as I heard of the class. I was able to do it but it wasn't as "elegant" or realistic looking as the one I made in the class, thanks to the instructon.

And the skills I've picked up in the classes have helped with adjusting clothing. Not long ago, I didn't know how to do that and thanks to the classes I do. So I can take that "godfather" hat that made me bald and attach it to my chin instead of the default and then move it to where it loks right. I can take my jooky kitty and move it to a good position, I can adjust my prim eyelashes to fit my skin better. And now I have a Devo hat with floating text script in it that says "Whip it good"
,p>

I heartily recommend taking classes to all newbies. There's various groups running them and they all seem to do a pretty good job. The TeaZer folks seem a touch more organized in a "formal" fashion with notecard handouts and class supplies and whatnot than the others, but that's just a minor thing.

Caledon

Some of my internet acquaintances who are involved in SL, hang out in Caledon. Caledon is a large island complex that is Victorian influenced with a touch of steampunk thrown in. Think HG Wells, Jules Verne, "The Difference Engine". Though eventually the steampunkers will have their own sim, and Caledon will revert to "straight" Victorian. It is a lovely place, green and pleasant, with lovley architecture and lovely layouts. In other words, it's pretty.And from what I gather, it's pretty because of th e"zoning rules" that I think the whole grid could benefit from.in certain ways. Caledon even has a tram/trolley.

The people of Caledon are nice too, extremely polite and well spoken. Caledonians have a certain manner of speech, archaic, but full of pleasantries. For example, a Caledonian would address me as Miss Creeggan in chat. It most enjoyable to chat with people capable of communicating in such a manner.

The fashions of Caledon tend to the Victorian, though there is no dress code, apart from refraining from nudity. Both L&E and Silent Sparrow have satellite shops in Caledon, which made perfect sense to me. One of my friends pointed me to a small shop above L&E where I was able to procure Caledonian fashions for a small amount of Lindens.

This dress is called Ingrid, the first screenshot was taken in a small object/furnishing shop abop above the Silent Sparrow Caledonian location. Simple and lovely and only 25 $L

The next image was taken outside of Caledon after I was given a lovely veiled hat, and a fluttery fan by a Caledonian resident. A nice screenshot don't you think. Another friend of mine jokingly referred to me as Mary Poppins.

All in all, visiting Caledon was a most pleasant experience.

Lifestyles of the Famous

One interesting thing about SL is that the in-game famous, like the designers and content creators that make me pretty, are accessible. Very accessible, even to a newbie. They work on their stores, they shop themselves, etc.

And then they have boxes on their heads.

That's Garbage Prototype, hair designer with a moogle box from Luxe on his head. Almost everyone buying a moogle made the mistake of thinking it was RTW (ready to wear), but it isn't, you still have to take it out of the cute box. So people end up with moogles on their heads. I did it too a couple of days before. And I saw another desinger that I can't remember tha name of do it.

For fun Ive even intentionally wore the box as headgear because it's cute, cutest box in SL by far.

The Dazzle sim (with Luxe and soon to be Crush skin project) seems to have become fashionista central, It seems you'll see everyone who is anyone there. It will probably become even more of a hotspot once the ice cream parlor shows up so that people won't have to just stand in the street and hang out. Ahh one of the great things about SL, eat all the ice cream I want and still look like a goddess.

Anyway, I had heard that Luxe had moved across from Dazzle and popped in, thats when I got my moogle. And woah, Lo Jacobs of Luxe, Elikapeka Tiramisu of ETD and Ginny Talamasca of DAZZLE Haute Couture were there, hob-nobbing and looking fabulous.

That's the three of them, Lo, Elika an Ginny in front of me, my Luxe Kill Bill outfit hadn't materialized yet.

Sol Columbia had been there too a couple of minutes before.

I still haven't met Salome Strangelove of Linden Lifestyles fashion blog yet, or Celebrity Trollop or Torrid Midnight, among many.

Smaller designers

Sometimes I think some of the smaller design houses get overlooked in blogpspace in comparison to the big name designers who do lots of output. This post is in part to remedy that.

The first person to friend me in SL was a designer, and I didn't even know that till a couple of weeks after. It was Tanya Book of the Fiendish 3. They don't have a large selection, but it is nice and I rather like the style of their products. Wore the Ann Taylor inspired "Connie in Pink" dress yesterday on grid, and got compliments from two people on it.

I saw Tanya recently in a monarch butterfly dress and asked where she got it, It turned out to be on of their designs. It's the Cheyenne, which has wings. Wings, I tell you.

Go visit their shop, please.


Another small designer, whom I have encountered, is Jennifer McLuhan.

I had just recently changed my home point from where I had originally came into the game at (via a podcast link) to a welcome point. One day, after I had just logged in an avatar with a lovely geen and gold dress came through.

"Where did you get that dress!"

"I made it"

"It's pretty enough to sell."

"I do."

She pointed me to her shop which has pretties in it. Some really simple/pretty/ann taylory dresses, which I booght since I wanted some simple "day dresses" and I had more lindens.

Waaah I need more lindens!

Anyway, it's nice stuff. That afore mentioned green/gold dress looks awesome on my pale skinned/auburn haired avatar. :-) Pale is the new tan!

Do a search and you'll find her shop. It's well worth a visit.

Yummy skins, by Robin (Wood) Sojourner

Yet Another online friend that I know from another forum is also involved with SL. She mentioned that she was using Yummy skins, which I hadn't heard of.

So I do the usual search thing and find the location where they're sold and find out about their creator, Robin Sojourner.

who is in RL, fantasy artist Robin Wood.

And that made perfect logical sense to me, that if Robin Wood was in SL that she'd be doing skins.
If you've seen her artwork, like that for Dragon Magazine, you'd realize why.

I tried on the demo skins at her shop,and they are quite obviously "Robin Wood" works. They have the look. Basically they're similar the Tete a Pied skins, similar shading and whatnot, hand painted, demure, sweet. (and popular among the ladies of Victorian/Steampunk Caledon, I gather) The lips are differently shaped though, so if You like the Tete a Pied skins but their lip shape doesn't work for you, you might try a Yummy. They, like the other skins I am fond of, come in various brow shades, and various makeups. One of the night/evening makeups is kind of like a combination of a Tete a Pied look with the look of the wine lipped Celebrity. Just downright gorgeous.

I also noted that the lash looks on the makeups were very good, compared with other skins. Up to fake eyelash intensity, if you want it. (bat bat, flutter)

I liked the skins enough to want to buy them the next time my linden balance is healthier.

Robin Sojourner's shop is in Serenite, just head on down the path from the point you teleport in at.

Tete Deux!

An online friend that I know from another forum is also in second life and I was looking at her profile and saw that she was a member of the Tete a Pied notification group. And I was not, didn't remember why not. So I popped over to Tete a Pied to see if there was some gizmo there that would let me sign up before I IM'd Roslin Petion.

And the landmark didn't work.

So I used search and Tete a Pied had moved.

I popped over to the new location and lo and behold, Roslin was there.

Apparently they're going to be changing their boutique, they need more space. Space for new skins!

We began discussing her skin's and Roslin said that based on customer feedback that there will be some differences in the new skins to make them "compatible" with more shapes. That the original TaP skins were not tested on many shapes which explains why the skin is "more picky" than other skins on what shapes it looks good on. They also hope to keep the things people like about the skins intact (the demure sweetness and just simple prettyness) while improving it's appeal to a wider audience.

Roslin was wearing a prototype of the new skin at the time and the major difference I could see was the new lips, which were the one problem point in the classic TaP skins. (some may have noticed that the RFL skins also have slightly different lips than the classic TaP skins)

I don't know if TaP is keeping the "makeup box" concept, I hope they do, that was neat.

I would also expect the new skins to come in a variety of shades, the skin Roslin was wearing ath the time appeared slightly darker than a Havana, but lighter than a Nairobi, at least to my untrained eye.

I, for one, eagerly await the new skins. (Must increase linden balance before release)

Weapons, with style

SL has combat within it, but I've not become involved with it. I've seen weapons now and again on avatars but all I had was the bog standard pop gun and the sword.

Last week I noticed a flurry of action around the OPIUM Everyday store, and noticed a lot more green dots on what I call the "radar" (the mini-map) So I walk around there and see a new "godfather store" where they sell snappy suits and "pieces" But...they only sell Desert Eagle's and Uzi's and I openly said, "What? where's the tommy guns. A classic gangster has to have a tommy gun."

So yesterday I was piddling around and put tommy gun in the search and found a store that sold them. It's the classic 1928 model with the drum magazine. I went back to the godfater store, bought a suit for my avatar and equipped my weapon. I'm ready for rat-a-tat action. Bada Bing:-)

I've not tested it out in actual combat, but it works well enough on the Dalek I rezzed in a sandbox. "Five rounds, rapid!"

Yesterday, I also saw a a replica of the yellow jumpsuit Beatrix Kiddo wore in Kill Bill, and while I was at Adam n Eve, saw a couple of ninja/samurai battling and was talking to them about it. they said,they hadn't seen it, but that I should buy it out of general coolness. I then asked where they got their swords because they were sparring, and they told me about samurai island. So I buy the jumpsuit, head to Musashi-Do's sword shop and say "I need Japanese steel"
,p>

I've not tested it in combat either, it has the Samurai Island combat system built in, I just wanted to wear a katana...with style. :-)

All dressed up and nowhere to go?

I'm new to the "game" and don't know much about events, and have few contacts to hang out with, so I sometimes search the "Events" for places to go. So I found out about a club called the Blue note, which is a jazz club. If I don't think of something else to do, I sometimes pop in there to listen to the music. I dress appropriately for this sort of classy place, on one ocassion I was wearing my "Retro Kitty dress:

I met a person there who began asking what kind of music, and if I liked 80's music, which I do. and they took me to another club. (which I can't remember the name of) I switched to my current standby "black dress to wear when you don't know what to wear to a club" dress:

I had purchased the Rebel Hope VIP dress previously and was lamenting to this person that I had a very glamorous gown but no place to wear it to. They then told me about the Ritzz and TP'd me there. YES! perfect, looks like it just popped out of an old movie. Great music too. Very classy, very sophisticated. Pictures of the VIP dress (using my new Picture Perfect posing stand and background thingy, thanks to Sabrina Doolittle of Linden Lifestyles fashion blog, for creating it.)

A day or so later, I tp'd an acquaintance there, (they didn't know about it, the Ritzz is one well kept secret or something) We had some fun, and I was about to leave when another person popped in and we began to talk. She said that she came there every once in a while just to dance on her own and listen to the music and to wear her pretty gowns. And her gown was a gorgeous strappless chiffony full skirted concoction. I, of course, wanted it. I couldn't stay long, she seemed disappointed that I couldn't stay and keep her company and I understood. Seems kind of sad that such a beautiful location is empty most of the time. Before I left she gave me a very nice little gift, it's an attachment that makes my avatar smile randomly. She said it makes them more lifelike. I had only heard of such things and hadn't seen one or purchased one yet so it was a very thoughtful gift. Her name was Ember if I remember correctly, and she was very sweet. Thank you Ember, I hope we dance again at the Ritzz.

That got me thinking... there are others who lament having hordes of beautiful evening gowns in their inventories but feeling funny actually wearing them out on the grid. Being all dressed up but no where to go. Read this on Willow Zander's blog Page from Willow Zander's blog

So why not start an event to counter act this, a "Fashionista Ball and Expo" Over an entire day ( to complement various schedules and time zones) host a ball at the Ritzz and to supplement the ball, have a vendor area in one of those big empty spaces there. It would be fun to get to wear the gowns and vendors would get exposer to lots of customers and customers could learn about vendors they hadn't seen or heard of yet. You could also have mini-events, raffles, "Cinderella" type makeovers for newbies with system hair/skin, fashion shows, even goody bags. I'm thinking that this could be something like a mini version of RL fashion week or something. Course we'd need the SL equivalent of "7th on sixth" to run it, but it sounds like a great idea to me.

Printing notecards

One thing I'd love to be able to do is to print notecards from within the game, so I could build up a binder of game material.

Store aesthetics, or "Mommy, the gray squares scare me."

I'm a gamer and one thing I know through playing lots of 3D games is:

One of the things that will bog down a 3D engine are wide, large open spaces. They'll stutter and the frame rate will drop and it will jerk.

Well, in SL there's a heck of a lot of open space in those warehouse sized stores, and it makes for abad experience for this user. It's also bad 3D gaming design, bug of course, the people designing these stores probably aren't seasoned 3D level/environment builders, they build what works for them and what looks nice.

My advice would be to instead of being a warehouse, switch to a multifloor design, like say a real world department store. You want to reduce the number of polygons that need to be drawn and textured at any one moment to as small as you can get it. You'll want to use interior walls to reduce this further. Yes, that will mean that those that sit in the middle of the big warehouse and shop from there won't like it, but for everyone else the user experience will be better.

It will also help you organize your inventory better. For example, Everday wear on level 1, evening gowns on level 2, shoes on level 3, etc. For something like hair it could be, casual styles on one floor, bedroom styles on the next, club styles on the next etc. That would also help users actually find what they want. For my sake I don't want to have to hover my mouse over dozens upon dozens of gray squares (that's what tends to make them rez for me) to find what I'm looking for.

Another idea for stores is PDF catalogs. Suppose one had a PDF showing pictures of every item and it's location in store. That would save time, I wouldn't have to check every grey square to see if it was what I wanted, I could just go to "section 3 of floor 2" and look for it there.

Another idea is to make more use of signs and in store orgamization. Imagine a first time customer, they don't know where anything is, so do you want them to see first? A sign, that will give them a map to the store. "click here for map and landmark"

Another idea is to hire CSR's, not to directly sell the items (let the boxes do that) but to answer questions and to help the customers. Even a huge open warehouse would be easier to shop in if I could go up to someone and say, "I'm looking for a chic professional hairstyle to wear with my career wear" and they could point me to it.

My Eyes, they Glow.

I had read about the Lynnix prim "fake eyelashes" on the blogs of the usual suspects: Sabrina and Salome's blog and Celebrity Trollop's blog

Now I'm a big aficionado of fake eyelashes in RL,even though I don't actually wear them that often, my favorites being the MAC #5's, so I just had to try them. You can see them in some of my earlier blog posts but I'll post some images that you can see them even better. I so love the way they look on my avatar....Awesome.:

worn with a Tete a Pied skin, very Audrey Hepburn:

And worn with my Celebrity Moonbeam, a sultry Audrey Hepburn :-)

Astute readers will notice the new eyes in the above picture. When I was chatting with Sylfie Minogue, awesome shoemaker, during the delivery of the shoes, I asked if she had any advice on improving my avatar's appearance and she said "eyes". And said they were rather plain and drab. :-) So I went back to the blogs, and read about the Perfect Peepers from NYTERAVE. They're scripted, the left eye has emotes, including a care bear hug, and the right eye has scanning functions. Not only that, but they glow and bling a little. These are the #66's.(also used by Sabrina Doolittle) a rather intense green. I might have chosen a different color but there are 140 colors and clicking through each one and waiting for the texture to load was slow. It would be nice if NYTERAVE had a chart showing all the colors, and a vendor that perhaps let you pick the ones you wanted by inputting the numbers. I don't know if that's possible or not. More on store layour/design/vendors in another blog post

Inventory

My in game inventory has over 3500 items in it and it's "teh devil" to keep it organized. I did go to a "item organization" class in world and that really did help. I learned how to use the features of the file inventory menu to make finding things easier. For example searching for WORN fshows all the worn items., really handy. And you can make copying folders and items eaiser by opening a second inventory window.

but what I really want is the ability to print my inventory on paper and/or be able to save my current inventory to disk so I can access it outside of SL. That would be so awesome.

Shoes from Sylfie

I heard about Sylfie Minogue and her Prim Seduction shoes, very soon after joining SL. It probably was within hours. For me the hard part was finding Sylfie's store, any searches for her shoe will lead you to Jolie's Boutique, which doesn't carry her shoes. The secret is is that Sylfie's boutique is just outside Jolie's. :-)

When I finally found them I went, "woah". These weren't your ordinary shoes, these were wearable art. Now admittedly some of them were a bit over the top for the kind of things my avatar wears, but there were some shoes I desired, right then and there.

However, I was without my perfect shoes....these shoes. My pretty Katharine Mary Janes from JC Penney,

Which themselves were probably inspired by these very famous shoes, the Manolo Blahnik Campari Mary Janes

Now I had seen some there were close, but just not close enough. One shoe that came very close was Sylfies' "Origin". Almost perfect, except the heel is metal, and that just makes them a little bit too fabulous. But I made do, and they're still gorgeous.

I was discussing my shoe woes with another Av (it probably was Alaska Metropolitan of OPIUM)when she suggested I contact Sylfie to see if she could make me my perfect shoes.

I hadn't actually thought of doing that, you see, I carry over some of my thinking about designers in the RL who are inaccessible and don't talk to just any lowly worm. Which was kind of stupid considering who I was talking to. (probably, it was either her or Sabrina Doolittle )

So I IM'd Sylfie and after I explained what I wanted, finally realizeing I could make it easier by showing her a picture, she said yes. And a day later there abouts, I had them.

My totally awesome shoes, my perfect shoes, my jeans stiletto's, my dress stiletto's, my trouser stilleto's, my "they look good with anything stiletto's". Not only that, but she asked whether I'd like them in grey and since I had the Marissa dress from Dazzle I said, "can you match this dress" and she did! right in front of me!

Not long after acquring them another AV said to me, paraphrasing "wow, nice shoes, they look Italian" Which was basically the point of their pointy toed goodness :-)

The style name is Uno, and they'll be available for sale in the future. Thanks Sylfie, You're Awesome!

ETD Brilliant!

ETD's new build has been noted on other blogs and I took a look see. I like it, I like it better than her previous build, which while taking its sweet time to load on my machine, did look nice. I really went there to take a look at the new hairstyle Brilliant which seems like something I was looking for when I first went hair shopping around a week and a half ago. :-)

I wanted something not too short, not too long, no pony tails, or ribbons, not too sexy not too cutesy and Brilliant fits the bill perfectly. And it looks awesome on my avatar, that of course, being the most important thing.

Pretty!

Not long after joining SL, I read of a dress release in the spring by Torrid Midnight in her Torridwear store called, City Girls: Spring Flowers. I also read that they didn't sell very well, compared with Torrid's clubwear/corsets and the like. I was surprised, I thought the dresses were very pretty in a SATC Charlotte way. So I bought the set. They really are just simply pretty dresses, they come with shoes, bracelet and a bag with a sweet animation override that gives the avatar a dainty little walk, sit and stand.

yes, I have pictures, I didn't have a skin when I took the screenshots. I'm wearing the Audrey hairstyle from Six Kennedy's Gurl 6 store that I've used in other photos, it suits these dresses very well indeed. In fact I bought the hair to go with the dresses.

It's still summer, so there's still time to buy and wear them to death. What am I saying, in SL it's endless summer. :-) Please, make the fashion gods happy and buy the pretty, so Torrid will moke more pretty.

Shapes and Skins

It's pretty much accepted in SL that a goog skin is the biggest contributor to an Avatar's appearance. It's also accepted that good skins cost money, lots of it. But money is finite and we don't want to buy a bad skin for our shape. yes, that's right, some skins simply don't look good on certain shapes. In fact, some shapes tend to make any skin you put on them look bad, but then again there's some shapes out there that make any skin look good.

The interaction of skin and shape is a tricky thing, and it can be surprising at times what works and what doesn't. I wasn't a very smart shopper and bought skins early I think. I should have tried more demo's in more shops. Not just looking at the demos in the shop lighting but taking them out for a spin and comparing them to other demos in various kinds of lighting.

Also finding a good shape is tricky, especially one that looks good under many skins.

I will write about skins I tried and liked, but these are not formalized reviews. Skin is a very ssubjective thing. Some skins recommended to me, I didn't like at all, even though I'd seen thm look awesome on other avatars.

My first skins were from the Gnubie shop, the freebie Panache skins and the skins from Tete a Pied. I didn't like the Panache skins at all on my default shape at the time, and they had built in bra/panties drawn into the skin which made them unsuitable for strapless/low cut dresses. The Tete a Pied skins.....those made my avatar look "nice"

Here is the Nicole shape from ShipShape in Pando square wearing a Tete a Pied skin.

Here is the Zora shape, also from ShipShape, in the same skin:

Zora's big eyes makes some skins look "off" on her. But I think Zora would make a good base for an "elven" shape.

The Tete a Pied skins tend to give a demure and sweet appearance to any shape. The look tends to go besst with certain clothing, 50's style dresses for example. The TaP skins are available in many shades, the one I chose was New York, which is the second lightest shade. Paris being the palest, Nairobi being the darkest.

TaP skins also come in varying "makeups" and brow shades. Thusly one might have a skin in the New York shade, with the Fashionista makeup, and with red brows. The skins creator, Roslin Petion is a makeup artist in RL so the makeup is really good, and you have options for mostany ocassion/outfit. I like the pretty glossy lips.

Individual skins cost 900L, but you can get a four pack for 1200L. TaP four packs are a really good deal, because they come with a special scripted "makeup case". The case allows one to buy whatever "makeups" in your chosen skin shade at a reduced cost 350L. Not only that, but it works anywhere in world, and it's a cute little device in it's own right. In fact, If I owned a residence, I'd put it on a dresser just so I could look at it easily whenever I wanted.

Tete a Pied also did a special edition release "LIfe" for the Second Life Relay for Life, which has my favoirte Tete a Pied skin in it, The New York one. Just simply pretty.

Roslin Petion's Tete a Pied blog


Luxe 2.0 by Lo Jacobs: These are my "look like a fashionista magazine editor" skin. They have a sort of "uptown, big city fashionista" look to them and were the first skins I had that could make some of my less nice shapes look good. A nice suit works well on these skins, though depending on the shape, they might come across as appearing a bit, "haughty". I need to take some screenshots of me in these These REALLY looked good on a shape given to me by the awesomacious Alaska Metropolitan, very sophisticated. They looked so good that that shape became my default. (it makes other skins look awesome too and almost every fashion I've put on it looks awesome) Awesome!

My newest skins are my default and they are the excellent:

Celebrity Moonbeam by Sachi Vixen from Adam n Eve.

the mighty Sabrina Doolittle of Linden Lifestyles blog befriended me in game after I IM'd her and gushed about how much I loved her and Salome's blog. One day I was messing with the IM and friend features of SL that I hadn't used much or knew much about using. I figured out htat I could find Sabrina's location and teleport near her. I also noted there was some kind of Dicken's fair" going on near her. So I popped over to find her and someone else working on the Dickens fair build which has to be seen to be believed. A working carousel, carnival games, and apparently Elephant rides. They were kind enough to chat with this newbie an dI was discussing my shape/kin issues when the other person working was revealed to be Sachi Vixen of Adam n Eve. She asked if I had visited her store and I said I hadn't even begun to make a dent in visiting places. She then asked if I liked the haircolor I was using, and I said yes, that I stuck with similar auburn/chestnut/reddish shades. She then gave me a skin to try, I put it on, and woah! I had made it to the big leagues, my avatar was now a glamazon. I was. Sachi then told me that her store was right behind me, so guess what I did. Went back there and played through her demo skins an deventually did settle on the set that the skin she gave me was a part of. Apparently the skin is named after another famous SL fashionista and blogster, Celebrity Trollop

This is the wine lips version of the skin, oh so lovely. I'm wearing my Lynnix prim eyelashes too.: The hairstyle is, ETD's Patootie.

This skin looks so good, I have no plans to acquire any more. Except...hmmm. I wonder where Sylfie Minogue got her skin. It looks awesome! :-)

My early shopping choices.

Once I found out about how much fashion there was in SL I had to figure out the most important question in the entire universe:..... What to wear?

Looking around I found lots of over the top club wear but not much that I would actually wear in RL. So I did some Googling and found OPIUM Everday, a line of fashions created by Alaska Metropolitan. Alaska Metropolitan's Blog They had nice basics, and a couple of lovely suits:

A nice black pinstripe with blue trim. I'm a wearing my first bought skin with this one.

And a nice houndstooth:I was still using the default skin (with some changes to the makeup sliders) when I took these screenshots.

e





They really are nice ensembles for those of use in SL who like a "professional" look. So far I haven't seen anyone else in them, but Alaska says they sell quite well. I hope she does more for fall.

Besides the Suits OPIUM Everyday has jeans, tops skirts, undies, shoes (with kitten heels no less) and jewelry (the hoop earrings which I wear almost constantly are FREE), all of it looking pretty much like the nice everyday things women in RL wear. And it's all reasonably priced too.

Alaska Metropolitan is a skin/avatar designer too, and what I have seen is quality work. If I wanted a custom female avatar that looked "real" and "nice" she'd be the one I'd go to first.

In fact my default shape currently is one of hers, but not the one she used in her modeling shots of her clothing. A bunch of us would kill, figuratively, for that one. But the one she did give me is utterly beautiful and looks good with almost any skin on it, which can't be said for many shapes out there. More discussion of Shapes and Skins and how they interact and how not to buy them in another post.