Second Style Magazine

I have no idea why I buy lingerie in Second Life.  I mean, I can’t normally wear lingerie just hanging out at my house (that’s the guaranteed method to attract the wrong type of men…)  Yet, when I see a nice piece, I ooh and ahh and buy it.  I’ve had to temper myself at Insolence, as my Linden balance could get into all sorts of trouble there. 

But when I saw that Liquid Velvet Studios, one of my favorite designers, came out with some classy lingerie, I had to share the find.

“Within Dreams” is the first set I fell in love with.   White satin with detailed lacy edges is put together to make a innocently sexy lingerie set.   The bust area has some delicate lace underneath, and a patterned cup.

Wear the panties with the prim bow when you’re trying to snare your special someone in…wear the skirt when you want to remind them of your feminine charm.   Comes with the shirt, skirt, panties, and bow. (Hair by Random, skin by Celestial Studios)

Then, we have “My Love” – yes, that’s the name of the ensemble, although it certainly descibes my feelings for this piece as well.  One of my pet peeves in clothing design, is when no attempt is made to finish an outfit’s edges, and this is a peeve I have never ever had with Ravenlynn’s clothing.  The edges are  again scalloped, and the detail is divine. 

The only issue I had – a very minor one – was that the top of the area where the leg shows is actually part of the shirt design, so the top can’t be mixed with jeans (as I love to do with lacy tops).  But the dress/lingerie is still fantastic, and had I known that before I bought the outfit, I would still have picked it up.  Wear this when you want to stun your special person into speaking gibberish.  Just, wear it when you have a security orb for protection.  Trust me on this.  (Hair by Random – currently available at Hair Fair, skin by Sin Skins).

Both are available at Liquid Velvet Studios, in the Silky Whispers Lingerie area.

Seen in world: Yes | Review Copies: No | Friends List: No

Okay so we had a great Date a Designer Auction Luau last Saturday for Relay for Life that raised a total record of more than 1.1 MIO L$. I would like to thank all the wonderful designers that have committed themselves to this event and a special thank you to Torrid Midnight, Antonia Marat and Mathieu Basiat for being such good sports and spontaneous auction victims. You really made the difference between a succesful and a totally crazy hell of a fundraiser event.

Had Shai Delacroix released this lovely Hibiscus sarong & bikini last weekend, I would have surely worn it. It is perfect for a beachparty, dancing off in the sunset after a long hot day of just hanging on the beach in the warm sand and cooling off in the crystal clear water. After her 70′s & 80′s inspired outfits from early 2007, Shai is now in touch with her beach babe self and has released a stunning collection of beachwear. This is only one example of the quite extensive collection, available at the Casa del Shai flagship store at Deco. This sarong comes in three lovely colors, next to the cool blue there is also a soft yellow and a sunset pink set, and her Hamptons bikinis with sheer fisherman’s trousers come in six radiant striped versions. The Bohème bikini, also with the fisherman’s pants, come in four different colors and patterns. Whereas the Hibiscus and the Hamptons bikini have tiny briefs, the panties of the Bohème bikini cover your behind a bit more. Which is great because not everyone is into tiny bikini bottoms. For a look at the Hamptons & Bohème Bikinis, take a look at Shai’s blog.

Seen in world: yes  ~ Review Copy: yes  ~ Friends List: yes 

Sometimes you follow up something you read on another blog and stumble onto something so hilarious that you just have to have it, even when you know you are not likely to wear it (often). It was the case when I decided to go and take a look at Marly’s Vintage Clothing & Hair after having read the great review on Appearance Mode of the new Agent Pushbutton coat. Indeed, Agent Pushbutton, a coat as cool as Push herself. But wat really struck me in Marleen Vaughan’s shop, was this over the suburbia top 50’s dress WITH AN APRON!!!!!

OMG, I’m so Stepford in this. My house is his Castle and my sole purpose in life is keeping it nice and tidy. Being a busy housewife all day without even getting one wrinkle in my perfectly tailored dress and dito apron. It’s adorable. As are the yellow rubber gloves, cause I can’t let my perfectly manicured nails being ruined in the warm water with detergents. The best feature of this outfit is something you don’t even see in this photo… my eternal brilliant toothepaste smile is not only the job of my awesome and handsome dentist or me being just a blissfully happy housewife but…. the limitless supply of valium hat comes with this dress. Being little Mrs. Perfect always, you either start your happy hour earlier every day, or you take a little pill or two every now and then… or three…. Oh, remind me to ask Fashion Victim’s Ayami Reisman about her famous pot roast recipy. 

When on Sunday I lay off my apron, which really is my best friend in my wardrobe, I like this sweet polkadot dress to go to church with. I love polkadots and find them hard to resist when I find them. They make me happy, even without valium. Marleen has more very cute retro outfits and matching hair too, although I chose here to go for Calla’s Daphne which is deliciously 50’s. Sandra Dee would have been a great name too. Calla’s Haedon Quine is responsible for the great prim work in this polkadot dress. The skin in both pics is Tete à Pied’s Bronzage Medium Sophisticate 1 The necklaces are Dexter Bachman’s. 

Seen in world: yes  ~ Review Copies: no  ~ Friends List: no

Even though the weather outside my window is pretty frightful — and not at all spring like — I can fallback on the cute and sassy springtime fashions just now starting to blossom. This is Ashley by Nessinger Loveless of TART — one of my favorite designers. In Ashley, Nessinger has created a fun, adorable and utterly retro springtime dress. Ashley comes in an array of colors — all using the same basic vintage polka dot design. (The one in the photograph is called “sunshine” and it does seem cheery and bright.) Everything about this design signals its playfulness — the poofy princess cap sleeves, the flirty flexi hemline and the fabric texture itself. I matched it up with a pair of brown leather sandals from Boing Fromage and some mix-n-match hippie bracelets by Fallingwater Cellardoor. I felt totally ready to talk a sun drenched walk through a park, just smiling at the whole world when I took this photo.

Ashley is available at TART; the mainstore is on Oe sim, but TART has various outlets around Second Life. (Check Nessinger Loveless’ picks for store locations.)

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

A few days ago, Blaze Columbia IMed me, asking “Would you mind if I named a dress after you?” After me?! Squeee. No, I wouldn’t mind at all. Thank you!

For the past few days, though, I’ve been thinking about his project off and on. He sent me a photo a while ago of a “proof of concept” and that looks exceptional, but now that I’ve had a chance to wear the finished product I can add “Superb!” and “Gorgeous!” The Celebrity gown uses Blaze’s outstanding silk fabric textures — the bold jewel tones and metallics are perfect fits for this “red carpet” starlet sort of design but I also think the softer but richly vibrant pastels work quite nicely too.

One of my favorite design elements of this gown is the bustle which adds the illusion of an elegant train dramatically draped behind your avatar as she moves. (You can really see the detail on the bustle if you examine the photo on the right.) I think the sequin detail on the skirting and along the cut of the bodice really raise the glamour factor.

Thank you for the honor of having my name attached to this beautiful creation, Blaze. I’m extremely flattered by the gesture.

I also have to give a shout-out to two recent skin releases. On the left, with the aqua gown, I’m wearing Starley Thereian’s new Spring special edition Vogue skins. It’s a four pack — available until the end of the spring time. (When it will be replaced with a Summer special edition.) Eventually, Starley will release a “Cycle of Seasons” collection of all 16 skins (plus their freckled counterparts.) Starley is the queen of makeup in my book. Period. Full stop. I was trying on gowns when I was also examining my new Spring skins — and I had one of those “you got your chocolate in my peanut butter” moments with the aqua gown and the Vernal makeup.

The other skin I wanted to talk about (briefly) is the new Eve skin by sachi Vixen. Sachi sent me a pre-release version and I about fell out of my seat at the computer desk due to the body shading. It’s simply exquisite — and is a more than worthy addition to your skin collection. The makeups run from subtle to vampy and there’s just an incredible wealth of details. I’m wearing Eve skin in the gold gown to the right — just look at the shoulder blades and the work along the spinal column. Fantastic. (I should have a more complete review of Eve forthcoming. But I also have about 4 other skins to photograph and write about first.)

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

Atlantis Modeling Agency is producing a fashion show featuring the work of Elle74 Zaftig of Bellissima this Saturday and Sunday at noon SLT on St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin (168, 12, 25). Formal clothing for both men and women will be shown at this “Dress to Impress” event.

Fashion Challenge #2 winner Betty Doyle came up with a truly inspired theme for our next challenge: show off your best “inspired by Audrey Hepburn” outfit and location. The winner of this challenge will walk away with L$250, the right to name the next challenge theme…

Plus, the winner will receive this exclusive Miriel Enfield necklace/earring combo in both gold and silver with both jet onyx and diamond stones. (This special stone/metal combination is just for our winner!) All this, plus whatever other goodies come along — past winners also got goodies from Rosemary Galbraith’s Oh What a Neat Boutique.

So for my own photo — I admit — I cheated a little. First, the photo was taken by the amazing Launa Fauna, and second Launa retouched the original in Photoshop so it was black and white. Thank you so much for the photograph — I think it’s great.

So how do you enter this fashion challenge? Four easy steps:

1. Create an outfit that meets the challenge theme. This challenge’s theme is “Inspired by Audrey Hepburn.” (Here’s some Audrey inspiration at IMDB.)
2. Submit your photo to snapzilla using the special Fashion Challenge email address: fc@slpics.com (Learn how to submit photos to snapzilla — it’s really easy!) Please, one entry per person.
3. Rate your photos and other photos submitted. (See all fashion challenge submissions.)
4. Second Style bloggers and magazine staff are not permitted to enter or win (but we can vote on submissions!)

I’ll take the top three rated photos with more than 20 votes. Then we’ll choose the winner by voting on the finalists here. The top voted photo here will be the winner!

Preliminaries go from now until April 22, 2007 at 11:59 pm SLT. We’ll crown the next fashion challenge champ on April 25, 2007.

Hair Fair 2007 opens at 10am SLT — right now!! And it is bigger and better than last year’s show without a doubt. Tons of amazing freebies abound, at least 300 new hairstyles are coming this week alone. Plus — there are four amazing one-of-a-kind “coterie” wigs which are being auctioned exclusively for Locks of Love. (You can see a photo of the hair auction signs to the left.) I already know just based on a sneaky peek of the venue last night that this is going to be one of the highlights of the SL fashion calendar. Aside from all of the new hair releases — the Hair Fair committee has two fun (and hard!) games they’ll be doing this year. Over L$40,000 will be given away along with other great prizes by some of Second Life’s most recognized fashion content creators. Additionally, there are sure to be meet ‘n’ greets with the hair creators and other wacky things going on through the whole week.

Hair Fair straddles two sims: Hermit Haven and Prim Paradise both of which are immediately south of Celestial City and ETD Island respectively. You can either “map->search” for one of the sim names or port yourself to Celestial or ETD and walk/fly south into the fair. The Hair Fair committee has taken great pains to eliminate scripts from just about everything and keep the prim count of the vendor displays reasonably sane — but even so, I’d be prepared to do a lot of camera shopping.

I know it’s taken a lot longer than Rebel wanted, but her new sim is finally open and online! Tonight she’s having a party to unveil the build and celebrate what must be such an extremely happy occassion. The theme of tonight’s party is “30s gangster style.” (If you’re looking for costume/clothing ideas, Second Style did a ‘film noir’ photo shoot two issues ago — plenty of fabulous period clothing, shoes and hair to kick start you shopping.) The event starts at 6pm SLT on “Monarch Bay” which is adjacent to Isla del Amor. Raffles and other goodies will be given away — sounds like fun!

BooBooKittie Haight of Catwalk City also wanted to invite all of our readers to come to a Catwalk City “Spring Fling” fashion show which starts at 8pm SLT (runway show to start at 8:30pm). Post show dance with models, designers and attendees. Last time Kittie had the fabulous Nethermore Bliss spin tunes for us. Kittie also says attendees will have the chance to run fashions right off the runway — cool idea! The show will be held on the Catwalk City sim.

Today, I am going to make an admission.

I like mesh skirts.

Especially during Spring, the clean lines of a simple skirt just appeal to me. Granted, they take some body modification and lots of prayer (and glitch pants!) to look proper, but to me, a well-made mesh skirt has an elegance that flex prims can’t match.

(And also, if you don’t wear a prim skirt, that’s just one less item that’ll end up in your nether regions after a bad teleport…)

So when Ciera Bergman of Vitamin Ci dropped her new release “Rachel” on me, I was thrilled to see that it gave me a mesh skirt option, as well as a flex skirt. I love the way Ciera designs her clothing – the lines are clean and shaded at the ends, giving a more dimensional appearance (like real clothes have, the shading from the gap between the clothing and your skin).

“Rachel” is the type of dress that I would feel perfectly comfortable wearing to a party, or to welcome visitors to my summer manor (yeah, I’m channeling my inner snob). It comes with the top and mesh skirt, and an optional prim skirt. The only wish I had for this outfit, was that it came with a set of glitch pants, as I don’t normally like wearing a prim skirt with a mesh skirt. This dress comes in four different color varieties.

(In left pic: hair by ND, skin by Panjen, shoes by 1-800-BETTIE’s – In right pic: hair by Calla, skin by Nomine, shoes by Autumn Elements)

And then, when heading over to Vitamin Ci to get the SLURL, I noticed that there was another new dress. I cheered, bought it, then left…and forgot to get the SLURL.  Sigh.

“Breeze” is another, very very chic outfit which utilizes a mesh skirt. Be sure to zoom in on the larger picture – the dress has a circular pattern that really makes the texture look like richly woven cloth.

This dress comes with the top, mesh skirt, and glitch pants.

I must apologize though – I really do have hands, despite what the pose leads you to believe.

(Hair by ETD, Skin by S}{E Skins, Shoes by KCD)

Rachel and Breeze can be found at Vitamin Ci – a word of caution though…Vitamin Ci may be good for you, but don’t try eating the clothes. Trust me, they don’t taste very good, and likely aren’t very healthy.

Seen in world: Yes | Review Copies: Rachel – Yes, Breeze – No | Friends List: No

As promised the other week here are some of the currently available items of which all proceeds go directly to Relay for Life.

 These cute bangles are offered by Caroline Apollo in exchange of a small donation to Relay for Life vendor. You get both of them, one for each arm. I have these myself and I think they are so lovely with the little purple and pink ribbons.  Pick them up at Caroline’s shop at Lolo.

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Marigold is one of Calla’s best hairdos, at least that is my personal opinion. Haedon and Tigerlily have made 10 of their favourites available in special developped Relay for Life Textures with cute purple tips. Go and get them all, as they are only available during the Relay for Life campaign at Callatropia.

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Next, there is this cute suit by Pukk Abel from First Impressions. She made three versions of it, a pale pink, a pink and a shocking pink. I have this suit and it’s just so well done. It’s girly and classy and considering that it is for a very good cause…hmmm.. when the grid is back up I might just go back for the other two too. Pukk has her shop at Industrielle 

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Miriel Enfield has made this lovely interpretation of hope. A beautiful necklace, Tree of Life. Now Miriel has been really busy lately rebuilding her shop, and yet she managed to find time to create a wonderful piece like this, to help the ACS in their quest to find a cure for cancer and their support of people who are touched by this horrible disease. The least we,fashionistas and shopaholics, can do is hurry over to Nouveau as soon as the grid is back up and get it while it’s out there.

Nex Brannan from Brutal Gear, who usually designs awesome things for the males of Second Life, has created this brown Highwayman leather jacket that comes in two versions in one box. One for the boys and, yes, one especially for us girls. Smaller lapels (both spiked and flat) to fit our delicate shoulders and a smaller belt for our slender waists. Now isn’t that considerate!? I’ve been wearing it a lot on some of the stunning jeans that have been released ultimately and it is HOT!

Next week a new Relay for Life products round up. If you are a content creator and have RFL items on display in your shop, just send me a note card with a photo of the item (bigger is better and please do not send me the actual product!), a landmark to your shop and maybe even a short text about what inspired you to create this particular item. If you are part of one of the sponsor teams or if you use the RFL vendor from one of the teams, please let me know that as well.

Thanks to Nick Shaftoe (our fearless site administrator) for the new look of our blog here. I love pink, but I decided it was time for a little bit of a color change — so we’re using pink as an accent color, while the basic color is chocolaty brown paired with a pinkish tinged neutral taupe.

So what do you think?