Second Style Magazine

Bump: The end of the month is coming up — if you haven’t already taken our quick reader survey, please do so now and enter a drawing for one of 5 L$1000 prizes to be awarded around the first of August. Thanks!

UPDATE: Some people are reporting that they can’t open the survey, or they can’t enter their names. That’s ok — just leave a comment here with your avatar’s name if you want to enter the drawing and for some reason, you can’t do it on the survey form. Thank you.

We’re going to give away 5 L$1000 prizes by random drawing at the end of July. What do you have to do?

Take this simple reader survey.

It will take you on the order of 2 minutes to complete. Participation in the drawing is totally voluntary, although to be eligible you must supply your Second Life avatar’s name (so we know who to pay!) We will be collecting responses to the survey until July 31, 2007, with the drawing to be held on or around August 1st. We will notify winners via IM in Second Life.

Your responses to these questions will be aggregated with other responses and any personally identifying individual responses kept strictly confidential. Answers positive or critical will not affect your ability to be selected as a winner in our random prize drawing.

Thank you for your time! We really appreciate your opinion.

It’s been a while since our last Fashion Challenge, but it’s not because Aradia Dielli had a difficult time choosing a theme — actually she knew exactly what she wanted to do. All of the blame lay with me — sorry, Aradia. Aradia wants to showcase the diversity of Second Life — show off an ethnic costume, or your favorite ethnic hair or skin. Not only will it make for a fascinating set of photos to look at, I think it will beautifully display how multifaceted Second Life really can be.

I asked Aradia to talk about why she chose this theme earlier today. She said, “I think SL is a great way to explore and meet people from around the world. It’s hard to reach out in RL to those in other countries. I think uniting all races is a good message. A message that no matter your color, religious beliefs or anything else that makes us different on the outside, we’re all the same on the inside.”

This will probably be the last fashion challenge for a while. I’m going to replace Fashion Challenges with a new photo-style contest which I will discuss more in August. Since this is a great topic and the last challenge for a while, the prize for this challenge will be a little bit different than in the past. I will take the top four photos, as judged by the readers (top vote getters will be determined by exactly how Snapzilla displays them in overall rating) and include each finalist in an upcoming issue of Second Style Magazine as the photo models for a story about diversity in Second Life.

So the prize package is: be a model in Second Style for a story about diversity in Second Life, be interviewed for the story, and get paid our standard rate for a model in the magazine, which is L$1000.

How to enter Fashion Challenge #6:

1. Create an outfit that meets the challenge theme. This challenge’s theme is diversity: national costumes, ethnic skins and hair, special accessories or clothing.
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!)

Submissions and preliminary voting will go from now until Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 11:59pm SLT. We will vote on a finalist here from August 11th through August 15th 11:59pm SLT. The ultimate winner will get an extra L$500 prize in cash, and a few other assorted goodies (which I’m still working on…)

Back in January I think, Celeb send me a message that she found this nice shop, Blooberry, owned by a couple of dutch designers, Raskella Canadeo and RFD Standish . I went over to meet them, and since then I have met Raskella on various occasions, but since Celeb wrote a blog post about them, at that time I didn’t. However, one of the times that Raskella and I ran into eachother, she told me that they had opened their own sim, and I promised to come over and take a look, which, until today, I never found the time to do. It looks so nice though!

While there I could not resist picking up some of the goodies and share them with you. Like this lovely cerise top Heloise with an turquoise tube top under it. I combine it here with the white leather pants from RDF’s shop which is opposite to the Blooberry main shop and the Maribel shoes in aqua. The top I wear in the picture above is one of the newest releases, Zarine, and I wear them with the black Margaux shoes. I bought those in aqua when I first visited Blooberry and they are among my favourite shoes, so picking up the blacks was no punishment at all.

The hair is ETD’s Jessica in the new Smoke Burnt texture (soon to be released) and the skin is Gala’s RFL special sunkissed Esprit. IN the Heloise photo I also wear Earthtones’Phaedra’s Crest, which matches the colours of Heloise perfectly.

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

This started out as a review of the new dresses by caLLie cLine and turned into a hair and accessory party for Justine, which I think means good things about caLLie’s new Fun in the Sun and Fun in the Eastern Sun sets. “Try ‘em with those glasses you were wearing,” she suggested, and off I went to accessorize.

And this is what I like about this new line; The Fun in the Suns totally work as sincere and sweet summer dresses, but with the right accoutrements each can be a fun outfit to tramp up or camp up, dress up or rock out. They go for L$199 each in her store in caLLiefornia. To the left you see the Dots B&W dress. I had a lot of fun with this look. The black scarf seen in the top inset comes with each dress in the line. The bow on the dress seen in the full length pic is prim.

Skin is Gothica from X2. The hair is Amy from Aden. Tattoos and glasses are from artilleri. (These glasses are the rhinestone retro model, not the same as the greta line I blogged the other day). Wrist and neck bangles from Cake.

To the left, dahling, I have glammed out the shorter version of the Fun in the Sun Warm Color Dots dress. Each dress in the line consists of a mesh skirt with two prim skirt attachments of varying length. Directions for how to adjust one’s shape for a mesh skirt are included, but I found the dresses flattering enough that I didn’t need to use my dress shape.

I’ve accessorized with what might be the next big thing in hair, the ultra flexi hair from Analog Dog. I’m wearing Sasha, which I bought in their light colors but switched to a dark color by buying their color changing hud for L$150 per range of colors. It’s fun to play with and works with all their color change enabled hair. Skin is by RealSkin. Bling by Cake. Sunglasses from artilleri.

This is one of caLLie’s new Fun in the Eastern Sun dresses. I added the flower and bracelet from Cake. Hair by Nuclear Boutique. Skin by RealSkin.

caLLie cLine’s Fun in the Sun sets are actually fun. I had a great time trying her new line with different looks, and really was impressed with how versatile her dresses are, crossing from rockabilly chic to Jackie O. to summer breezy with ease. There are currently three in each of the Fun in the Sun and Fun in the Eastern Sun sets and rumor has it she’s working on more.

caLLie cLine’s Fun in the Sun
seen in world: no | friends list: yes | review copies: yes

accessories are a hodgepodge of review items and purchased items that would take far longer to explain than it’s worth. It’s all good stuff.

All you need to know here is that the store is Cake. When you land, the hair you want is called Rumor.

I saw it this morning on a customer at Paper Couture who was elbowing me out of the way to see if the new stuff was in. Her gorgeous hair stopped me in my tracks and we bonded over clothes and this incredible hair she’d found at Cake. It’s possible that every path I’ve taken in my life has led me to this hair. Yes, right now I’m thinking it’s that good.
The hair is L$ 300 a color. It comes in so many colors I got dizzy after twenty and had to sit down. I think the fat pack, which I saw retails for L$3500 has close to thirty colors.

Owner and designer Stumbelina Ophelia was kind enough to send a review copy of Rumor in Taupe and in Coffee, shown here, along with her awesome shirt dress in burgundy. The shirt dress is an incredibly rich texture along with a well made prim collar, cuffs, and tiny skirt section. The set also includes a checked belt, not shown in the photo.

When you land you’ll see several great looking hairs, a couple of which you’ll be seeing here on me sooner or later, but for now i’m not taking off Rumor.

(Take a walk around the aisle at Cake, and take a look at the Pop Flexi, Bezel and Modern Art jewelry. I went back to the store and bought them after the picture, check here to see them in the near future.)

Skin by Ayiki Takakura

Blog Item of the Week #2
Blog Item of the week this week comes from Maria Gherardi of MG Fashion. She was one of many who asked us to link her blog and when I went to check her blog out I saw that this cute babydoll had been released. It comes in a six color fat pack for L$590 or L$150 each. The fabric is reminiscent of barbeques and corn on the cob and is well executed on a cami top with prim ruffle that rox with only a little adjustment, and a prim bow in the back.

This was a busy week here in the Blog office. We added the following neatly alphabetized (we hope) list of
designer Blogs.
Annah Whitfield
Arikinui (Nuclear Boutique)
calla
Cashmere
Charmed Jewelry
The House of Zen
Immortelle
MG Fashion
Saucy
Spirit
Stellas Mall

Fashion Blogs:
Ana Lutetia
Deux Looks
Ensembly Challenged
Fashion Heaven
MichaMi Style
Second Life Shopping Guide
Shopping Cart Disco
SL Fashion SOS
SL Men

Addresses and stuff we messed with:
Arbers Makes a Blog, Whoo becomes Wintermoon
Dazzle Link switched to Last Call by DHC
RavenWear (Yahoo 360) switched to Ravenwear: The Anti Trend

We Removed:
Spunky Pinkdot (dead link)
Pushbutton Industries (dead link)

If you have a blog you’d like us to link to, or have something blogtastic I need to see, please e-mail me, the blogmistress at my email: justinebabii (at) yahoo.com or IM me in-world.

I’ve been on the phone with our hosting provider, Bluehost this morning about the recurring high CPU load issues. I think I’ve identified the problem and it should hopefully calm down over the next few days.

Also I’ve temporarily taken the links to snapzilla offline since they seem to not be working and stop our sidebar from loading. I’ve emailed Cristiano about it, hopefully he can get them working again soon!

Thank you for reading and thank you for your patience as we work through these growing pain issues.

Update [CT]: Mimi Lu said that the Lu sisters were going to try to get the Fall/Winter line prepped for sale today. So if you have some Lindens burning a hole in your virtual purse, stop by House of Lu and see if the newness is there.

The virtual world has been waiting patiently for a major fashion release from the House of Lu of Paper Couture. Today, in a very packed sim they unveiled their Fall Line in style. (Yes, packed, this reporter was a bit late and had to hover outside the sim to see).

I’ve been to a lot of Second Life fashion shows but this was the first show I’ve seen where the fashion and presentation were edgy enough to be more of an event than watching clothes one might buy sweeping down the runway. This was the kind of fasion show that’s held in the real world, and it was cool.

To keep lag down, and create a feel, attendees were asked to wear masks and leotards provided for the event. The invitation stated that guests should wear black, the Lu sisters enforced it by providing the outfits and also creating the perfect off-balance and unpredictable magic one should get from fashion.

The addage is that a picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll shut up and give you 10,000 words from the incredibly talented House of Lu.

Moire Georgette from Bossa Nova sent out a message today that she is having a reconstruction/clearance sale. She is building a new main store, and throughout the last months her skills have tremendously improved. So most of her old items will either be revamped in the near future, or be discontinued. A lot of  items are priced at 50L$, but some actually do go as low as L$ 30 so grab them while you can. There is no specific time set when the sale finishes… I guess when the new shop is ready, the sale ends.

In the meantime Moire won’t leave her customers suffering, she has released two very cute dresses today. Anise, the one in the photo above is named after her grandmother. She saw a picture of her grandmother once, made in the fifties, where she was wearing a similar dress that she made herself. The pixel version that Moire made comes in the four colours shown in the photo. The dresses shown in  the second photo are called Clove, and is made on the same elegant base as the Anise, but it has this lovely floral texture, and how well they match with Fallingwater Cellardoor’s Spring Stilettos!

The hair in these photos is all from Aden (Amy, Ginger Spice and Rihanna), the skin is Nevermore’s Enchanted Youth Hybrid, face 5, and the poses are Torrid Midnight’s.

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

Arbel Vogel, designer of Winter Moon, dropped me her latest release, the little black dress Gisele that comes with a cute black dotted blouse in both an opaque and a transparent version. I love black dresses and can never have enough of them because you can combine them with basically anything you like. I wear them here with Isabella heels which are made by new shoe designer Yasmine Yue from Cinderella. I like the shape of the heel so much, it’s elegant and feminine and perfect with Arbel’s dress. The hair is Aden’s Tiffany, and the skin is TaP’s Sophisticate 2 in bronzage medium. The poses used for this photo are the new fashion poses from Torrid Midnight.

Seen in world: yes  ~ Review copies: yes  ~ Friends list: no

While I certainly enjoy finding new talent (and there has been a considerable amount lately – more on that next post!), I’m still excited when my favorite oldbie designers come out with new fun pieces…

Here, I’m showing off three new creations…the dresses are called “Indyra”, a flouncy dress that makes me think of first dates, and the insane search for the “perfect” ensemble. This is an example of patterns done right, with highlighting and trim eliminating the monotony that many pattern-based pieces have. Be warned though, when I say flouncy, I mean it – the skirt swings rather freely.

Indyra comes with the shirt, glitch pants, and prim skirt, and is available in seven colors at Vitamin Ci.

The hair is also new from Analog Dog, darling of flexicurl lovers everywhere. “Claire” is one of their first short flexi ‘dos and has a classy flip at the end. It’s also important to note that, if you’re unfamiliar with their hair, that the hair comes with two pieces – the bangs and the hair.

Normally the bangs are a must-wear due to the hair fit – but for Claire, I found that I actually prefer the look without bangs (after taking the picture, of course…heh). Also, the hair is incredibly tintable…they even sell a HUD for coloring, if you so desire. Available in three different color packs at Analog Dog.

And lastly, poses! It appears that Tuli Asturias is branching out into poses, and the four I used are a sampling of what she has for sale in her main store. There are some perfect poses (with smooth transitions) for runway modeling, as well as quirky “I’m too sexy for my avie” poses.

My next post will showcase a few fun hairs and accessories…stay tuned!

(Skin by Karamia, shoes by Digit Darkes)

Seen in-world: Yes | Review Copies: Yes for Indyra, No for everything else | Friends List: Yes for Ciara, No for everything else (nobody loves me… >.<)

OMG the hair! Do yourself a favor and go check out aden, a small shop with hair by aden breyer (another locale here). You’ll find hair there that’s soft and silky, funky and cool. She has twenty or so styles, a dozen or so of which come in six colors (Black, Blonde, Red, Strawberry, Dark Brown, and a luscious Golden Brown).

She has a fun tribute set to the Spice Girls which only come in, well, Spice Girl colors. She has some other tributes, like the limited edition she has to super cool Amy Winehouse.

With the exception of the limited edition, each color is only L$ 100. (Amy is L$250).
I bought three; the Cami (shown left, look at the prim clip!), the Kara II and the Kenzie II, (you can see the back of kenzie II in the pic of the store).

Speaking of the next big things, I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that the awesome suede jacket is from Fabala Snakeankle of Snakeankle Bit You [SBY]. It comes as part of a whole suede set that includes a bodysuit and bunch of combinations (and the jacket both open and closed). Those gorgeous earrings are made by newly minted Master Jeweler Kianeira MacDiarmid as part of her very cool Sea Dreams set. Her store is called Dalriada.