Second Style Magazine

Update [CT]: The Second Style-Secondcast Fashion Dash event has been postponed in the wake of so many store closures. A new date and time will be announced soon. We apologize for the delay.

Bump [CT]: Just a friendly reminder — Second Style and SecondCast are teaming up for a really fun, cool event in November. Here are the details…

Second Style, Second Life’s premiere fashion magazine in partnership with Secondcast, Second Life’s premiere podcast will be hosting Fashion Dash on November 15th at 8pm SLT in the Secondcast Theater on Midnight City.

During a live taping of the podcast, six audience members (two groups of three) will be chosen and given 30 minutes and a budget of L$1,000 to assemble a complete look (hair, shoes, clothing and accessories) for a theme chosen by the Secondcast panel. Audience members will vote on the winner who has done the best job creating a thematic outfit and each winner will get L$5,000, a feature in a future issue of Second Style and other great prizes from Second Life content creators.

A registration box will be located at the event venue for people to register to be a contestant. (Venue may be subject to change — it’s possible the Theater will be too small to host the event.)

Hope you can come — it should be a blast!

Atlantis Modelling Agency is producing a fashion show this Saturday, November 18th at noon SLT in St. Stephen’s Park in the Dublin sim. The fashion designs of Moodii Moxie and Raven Callisto will be showcased.

The shows I’ve attended in the past have always been worth making time to see.

It’d been a while since I visited with Sparkle Skye, designer behind the Allure brand. Sparkle is probably best known for her incredibly detailed silks, but it seems as if lately she’s been working hard on a line of almost medieval inspired gowns. Last night I had the chance to visit her store in ImagineNation — and I could hardly believe how much things had changed. She had a completely rebuilt store for starters, and second Sparkle had embarked on a line of jewelry — this in addition to her hair and silks.

And wow, what a stunning design she’s put together here. Milady comes in 7 different colors, and most of them have a choice of silver or gold embroidery embellishments. (You can see them all on Sparkle’s blog) I’m wearing the “sage-gold” combination here. Each gown comes complete with a color matching tiara, a flexiprim train, and a jewel adorned flexi-prim mantle. Just about the only piece that’s missing are the shoes — and those are coming soon, Sparkle told me. Right after I put the gown on, I told Sparkle how much like a princess I felt. And later when a customer purchased the same color I was wearing in the store, she said the exact same thing!

Sparkle also passed me a copy of her new jewelry design called Thorns of Love which comes in 4 metal choices (from platinum to various shades of gold) plus a scripted color change gem. With the scripted gem, this set becomes incredibly versatile — it is probably a little too formal looking to wear with a tee shirt and jeans, but in any sort of formal it will be a stunning (bling free) finish for your overall look.

Seen in world: Yes
Review copies: Yes
Friends list: No

In this photo: skin: Charmed Tone 30 Glitter (Gold 2 + body sparkle) by Starley Thereian, Celestial Studios; hair: Couture Up-Do (rust) by Elika Tiramisu, ETD; jewelry: Thorns of Love by Sparkle Skye, Allure; gown: Milady (sage-gold) by Sparke Skye, Allure; shoes: Satin ties (gold) by Fallingwater Cellardoor, Shiny Things.

Elexor Matador was a jewelry designer I hadn’t known before, but he has been making fine jewelry within Second Life for a while — quietly and under the radar. “I didn’t really advertise consistently,” he told me last night. “Sometimes I’d post in the forums about a new release and sometimes not. Honestly, I hadn’t even heard of your blog until Amelia [his SL partner] told me about you.” We can all thank Amelia for pushing for a little bit higher visibility.

Elexor’s main vendor location is in the sim of Extraordinaire, in Lolly’s main store. “Currently all of my items are in [network vendors], but with close to 500 items, it’s probably time to open a store of my own.” Shown to the left is just one of those items — it’s a detail shot of the painstaking gold metallic texture that Elexor has been perfecting for a while. He’s created several works with it including a huge variety of beautiful glossy pearl textures in the traditional ivory, but also pink and shiny grey/black. Some of the pearl designs incorporate other gemstones too. Most of the jewelry blings — but on request, Elexor will be happy to sell you a version with no bling — or if you prefer something more “sparkly” than blingy. Elexor said, “I have one customer who always requests the bling she likes — different from the one I normally include — and it’s no problem to supply that.”

One new item that he passed me last night is a very pretty and delicate “flower” link design with a gem in the center of the flower. This done in the form of a bracelet with other matching pieces to come soon.

Seen in world: Yes
Review copies: Yes
Friends list: Yes

I remember last spring when boho fashion was all the rage from designers as diverse as Ginny Talamasca to the reigning boho design queen elka Lehane. So when I saw this brand new design — the rough cut peasant top and the tiered skirt I couldn’t help but think back to all the fun I had playing ultra fashionable Celebrity dress up dollie.

Gleam is the name of this brand new release, one of three new outfits Nyte Caligari released. Check out the high contrast wrinkles on the top and the absolutely fabulous looking shading and “crinkle” that’s been drawn on the skirt. Done in a very earthy fall appropriate color scheme, it exudes a cute casual charm.

The two other releases I will mention in passing are “short skirt” Rollick — paired up with an off the shoulder top sporting a deep V cut neckline, and “Zipped” which is kind of a disco-ish pantsuit which said “Dancing with the Stars” to me, although it wasn’t an inspiration Nyte told me. (But it so could be on that show, don’t you think?)

Seen in world: Yes
Review copies: Gleam
Friends list: Yes

Marketing evil genius (and machinima dilletante) Shep Korvin (the creator of the infamous Lucky Chair, owner of LapGirl Lingerie) has a new viral marketing device he calls MobVend. The idea behind MobVend is fiendish and simple: The more people in a store, the lower the item price drops. Eventually, the vendor hits “critical mass” when it gets to a pre-configured number of avatars present and the price drops to the lowest possible amount (also set by the device owner) for 60 seconds. When the mad minute is over, the price pops back to regular and the whole process starts over again.

Shep details his development and initial testing here. He writes that initial adopters will get it dirt cheap — and who doesn’t like to be on the bleeding edge of product marketing?

DoC Eldritch switched his blog from Blogger to his main design website over the weekend. In preparation for the big switch, DoC spiffed up his web design a bit — although I have to confess that the font and letter color DoC chose for his banner title reminds me of Neverwinter Nights for some reason.

I want to highlight DoC’s new line of clothing called “Him & Her” — which strangely enough — features sets with matching men and women’s outfits. DoC’s intent with this line is to produce stylish and trendy clothes for male and female avatars Shown here is the first release in the line called “Rogue” which definitely lives up to DoC’s design goals.

In other DE Design news, there’s been a bit of a store reorganization — 75 to 100 women’s outfits have been moved from the first to the second floor on DE Design island. So if you’ve been looking for a golden oldie and can’t find it, it might’ve gotten up and walked away… upstairs.

Seen in world: No
Review copy: No
Friends list: No

In moments of my ill spent youth, I would sometimes be admonished to be careful what I wished for — I just might get it. Here is a perfect illustration of the principle in action. Astry Mirabeau released several gorgeous neck adornments recently. And as I saw them come out, I thought, “Wow, I hope she keeps making more of those!” So what happened on Saturday? Astry released six new choker designs — two designs, with three variations on each theme. These are often — for me — the final perfecting element to any given look, especially something that’s more of the dressy/semi-formal or formal side of my virtual closet.

But they’d also go smashingly well with your favorite gothic look, or maybe you just want to dress up your tuxedo tee shirt with some smart looking (non-blingy) jewelry. As SL super model Queenie Extraordinaire wrote on her blog:

WHEN I do go, and yes I said when, that I am going to have a meltdown and either not be able to choose or I am gonna buy it ALL and be broke.

I second that thought. I’m afraid I’m in the same dilemma.

Seen in world: Yes
Review copies: No
Friends list: No

Tricky Twiddler Thereian shows how to track sales in Second Life using Excel in this flash based video tutorial. Read more about the tutorial on Twid’s blog.

Relee Baysklef wrote on Hamlet’s open thread over the weekend:

I have a message for anyone who wears or creates Bling-effect jewelery.

Amatur Scripters created the popular bling scripts with the option to issue a vocal command, like “Bling Off” or “BO” which turns the shiny particle effect on and off.

This script creates a small amount of constant lag, and every time it is copied into a seperate prim or object, the lag is increased. This stacks and is considered one of the greatest non-intentional causes of lag in SL by several of my fellow scripters.

Never been a big fan of bling, even bling that can be turned off. Relee suggests the following:

For a start, please take off any Bling jewelery or other decorative object that recieves chat commands. Some tools and equipment need these commands, but not jewelery and other decorations that you would wear all the time.

Also I would ask you to only purchase jewelery and accessories that don’t use vocal commands. It would help out everyone if you would do this.

Makes me wonder about color changing scripts that use channel chat commands (i.e., /4 color red). Do those lag everyone too?

Me: Fashionable, young magazine, snappy dresser, open minded, likes to experiment, well read.
You: Seeking customers for your fashion related product or service, brand builder, interested in long term relationship.

Second Style magazine is seeking to fill the last few ad slots for Issue #6 which will be published in time for New Years celebrations. A limited number of full page, half page and quarter page ads are available. As a year-end special we will run 5,000 complimentary web impressions (banner or button) with a full page (or larger) ad buy.

Second Style reached 9,000 readers with Issue #5, and served more than 85,000 combined web page views during October. We will be raising our ad prices in the New Year, so act now — reserve a spot in Issue #6 and consider making a longer term commitment to lock in even more savings issue after issue, even if single issue ad rates go up.

Web only rates are also a very affordable way to get your brand, product or service in front of interested fashion readers right now.

Browse our updated rate card here. For more information, or to reserve your spot in Issue #6, contact HeatherDawn Cohen in world or via email: heatherdawncohen at gmail dot com

Aleri Darkes of Diversity Hair just set up a vendor to give out vouchers for free hair for new residents under 1 month old.

Newbies can also get free or highly discounted hair at ETD, and Gurl6. If you’re a new resident in Second Life, make sure you stop by all of those places to get your avatar properly outfitted.